Many of you already know that I made the decision Thursday to head for Michigan on Friday and here I am. Carrying on the weather pox tradition, I wreaked havok on Central Florida and then rushed to Michigan to help usher in the coldest weather of the season. On the way I took a small detour to visit some friends in Mississippi.

Although I consider myself to be a good navigator, I was thinking their house was less than an hour away from I-65 and wouldn’t be much out of the way. As it turned out it was two and a half hours over and two and a half hours back. Thank you, Ruth and Bud, for some great conversation, a chance to catch up on each others’ lives, and great food. It’s surprising how far fat people will drive for a free meal!

On the way to the motel that night, I got almost there when the freeway came to a standstill. By then it was 11:15 Eastern time and I still had twenty miles to go. I was about the twentieth car back from the bright lights and police cars. After about twenty minutes (stuck on twenties…twenty miles, twentieth car, twenty minutes…interesting)  we started going very slowly in single file. I saw, in the middle of the road, a CJ series Jeep that looked like it had already gone through the compacting machine at the junk yard and someone in the ambulance that was covered up. It looked like a tornado had hit the area with clothes, plastic bags, paper and boxes strewn all over the place. As I went through I pondered how most of the people that had waited in line were probably still ticked because they were held up for a few minutes, and someone’s family was going to have to come to Alabama and literally pick up the pieces. It makes a little discomfort seem unimportant.

The drive on Saturday from Athens, Alabama to Hastings was stressful. From about Nashville on I had to hold the steering wheel tightly with both hands to keep the car on the road. The wind was very strong coming from my left. In one case a truck, just a short distance ahead of me, got blown off the road and into a ditch. The driver hadn’t gotten out yet and a police car was just pulling up. I told Jean that when she called I wouldn’t answer ‘cuz it would be too dangerous and I would return the call when I stopped for gas or food.

I told Jean, when I got home, that she would not have done well traveling. After starting out at 5:30 AM Central time, I stopped for 20 minutes for breakfast at a Waffle House, 10 minutes three times for gas and a bathroom break (that’s gasoline, not a bathroom break with gas), 20 minutes for lunch at a McDonalds, and that’s it. 70 minutes of down time on an 11 hour drive. The last hour and a half was white-out conditions and snow covered roads.

I figured Jean and I would be the only ones to show up at Sam and Colleen’s for this morning’s run and brunch. Apparently someone left the door unlocked at the looney bin and there were about 15 of us. With temps at the 3 or 4 below zero mark and wind chills in the teens below zero, it was surprising that no one seemed to have frostbite. We voted to see if Dr. Joe Seeling from Barry County Mental Health would want to join our group and do counselling while running.qhhcdaawtwjplgrlslcfwrwneqhhcdaawtwjplgrlslcfwrwne.

As I sat here reading the last paragraph, the last word that you see just popped up from nowhere. How did that happen? I wasn’t touching any of the keys. Maybe it’s the 57 degree temperature in here that’s making the computer sick!

Better go. The Super Bowl will be on in a couple of hours and I want to be sure to get a front row seat.

Just (Glad To Be Back!!????) Jack

 I’m guessing that when 90% of you saw the title to this week’s ramblings, and you remembered I just turned 60, you got this little smirk on your face and every Viagra joke you’ve ever heard came streaming back. The next thought probably was “90% of the men in Florida are limp, so tell me something new!”.

That’s not the problem at all. I’d tell you to ask Jean, but she’s not one to kiss and tell, so you’ll have to take my word for it (or not…I really don’t care). Anyway, every once in while I catch myself limping. Maybe it’s like moving to Tennessee from Michigan. If you hang around hillbillies long enough, sooner or later you start talking like a hillbilly. So maybe it’s just being here in Florida for a while. I go the grocery store during the day when the young people are working, and a good share of the people walking around are limping. I go to the YMCA three times a week and half of them are also limping. I run around the mobe park three times a week and most of the people I see are limping.

I’m not limping like Walter Brennan when he played Grandpa Amos in “The Real McCoys”, but it’s noticeable, at least to me. I really think it’s that pesky hip thing that’s been going on for a couple of months. I’ve been running three miles each time I go out and some days it doesn’t hurt as much as others. Sometimes it hurts on the bike and yesterday was one of those days. I rode 34 1/2 miles on a beautiful day. The weather is about to change, but yesterday it was around 73 degrees and sunny. There was a slight wind from the southeast at around 10 mph so I had to work to keep it at 15 mph going into it and rode easy at 19 or 20 on the way back. The hip hurt from the time I started until I finished and then ached most of the night.

There I go, whining again. I’ll stop!

I’ll be going back to Michigan for meetings on the 23rd and 27th of February and I’m in a quandary as to whether I’ll drive or fly. If I drive, I’ll have to have made the decision to stay for the rest of the winter. It’s cheaper for me to fly than to drive up and back alone. There’s a lot to do up there with moving into the condo and the CEO search at Pennock among other things. It would be easier to fill the Jeep with boxes than to put three or four at a time in Jean’s car.

I think Jean wants me home and I’d like to think it’s for companionship, but more than likely it’s to fix the things that she can’t and to carry my share of the attic junk up to the condo. She’s already had to have Bill come up and fix a broken basement window, Judy had to help her read the directions on how to program the garage door opener and Randall had to help her tighten down Becky’s bike seat. But it’s COLD up there. I have the thermostat set at 65 or so here and I’m on the edge of being chilly. With the thermostat at 57 in Hastings, I can’t get warm enough except when I’m in bed. Then I have to force myself to get out from under the covers when nature calls.

I know I must be back for the regular hospital board meeting on March 27th and there will be a couple more meetings around April 17th that I can’t miss, so at best, I’d stay here until the third week in March and that would be it. If the Green Street house or the Crooked Lake cottage would sell, that would make the decision for me.

What to do, what to do, what to do? Every time I almost decide to close up the mobe and go back home, I step out into sunshine and fresh air and wonder what I was thinking. Besides, I’ve paid my YMCA dues until the 7th of April. You know how “thrifty” I am. I would lie awake at night knowing I was wasting money by not using the Y.

Just (Not Ready To Write Off Winter In The Mobe Yet) Jack

First of all a couple of things from prior e-mails. A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Dave and Maggie Coleman’s winter getaway ranch (El Rancho de Coleman) on the bike route at San Antonio. Maggie sat next to me at last Tuesday’s hospital board meeting and let me know, in no uncertain terms, that it was not their place. We all make assumptions, and once in a while they’re wrong. I assumed that the picture I sent was of their place. Since it isn’t theirs, I imagine the sign was for their place across the street. It looks like an empty field to me, but maybe the house sits way back so Dave and Maggie can get some privacy from paparazzi like me.

In my old age, after getting so involved with the above confession, I’ve forgotten what the second thing was that I wanted to correct from prior e-mails. If I remember later I’ll let you know.

Now I have it. Ignore the last paragraph. Last week I wrote about being the weather pox. All the time I was in Michigan the weather down here was great. Daytime highs were in the mid seventies and, occasionally pushing eighty. I watched the news last night and saw that the daytime highs by the end of the week will be in the high fifties to very low sixties and I’m guessing there will be lots of wind.

Jan Kietzmann, from Hastings but spends the winters here in the park, is on my Sunday e-mail list. Apparently she told a few of the people down here about my weather affliction and that I would be back on the 18th of January. Last evening, as I was watching the Professional Poker Tour on the Travel Channel, I heard some noises outside. I looked out the vertical blinds and there were about forty people in front of my place with torches, pitchforks, and signs that said “Take your *&%$# weather and go back to Michigan”.  I ran after them but those three wheeled bikes and motorized wheelchairs are faster than you would think.

The trip down was pretty uneventful. I flew down on Allegiant Airlines from Lansing to Clearwater St. Pete Airport. My mother flew up the same day so I gave her a hug, we talked for five minutes, and then I got on the plane she got off from and away I went. I sat in the aisle in an exit row, so I had plenty of leg room but I wish I would have sat next to the window. First of all, I like to look down and see where we are. If it’s clear, I try to figure out what part of what state we are over based on the topography. It makes the time go by quicker and it brings out the geography geek that lives inside me. You wouldn’t think that, with my exciting, outgoing personality, there would be something that laid back inside. I guess we all have little surprises that we hide.

Secondly, the guy next to me sat with both elbows on the seat dividers, so I had to lean out into the aisle slightly. You had to pay two dollars for water, soda and six dollars for alcohol, so I figured no one would have to go the rest room. Wrong!! It seemed like everyone did and would just about tear my shoulder off when they went by. The guy in the middle seat next to me had a book of sudoku puzzles and he worked on them from time to time. I couldn’t help but notice that he kept looking at the solutions in the back of the book and then he would erase two or three of the sections of the puzzle he was working on. It’s a good thing none of my schoolteacher friends were there. They would have had him sitting in the corner with a dunce cap on his head and, in an airplane, a corner is hard to find. Several times I stifled the “you’re only cheating yourself” comment…he was much bigger than me with some mean looking tattoos.

I’m running short distances, trying to get my hip bursitis to heal and I’m not riding very far either. I can’t swim until the dome comes off the pool at the YMCA, so I’m already a little bored. Without Jean here I’m spending a lot less time in the kitchen trying to figure out where things are. I just look at where they’re supposed to be and there they are. I thought I cleaned out the refrigerator when we flew home on the 11th, but Jean did leave me a half eaten cup of yogurt with an expiration date of January 12th. I would have thrown it away, but she must be saving it for something, so I’ll take it with me next time I go to Michigan. I’ll just have to find a 3 ounce container to put it in since I don’t check any luggage.

Just (Enjoying A 77 Degree Day While They Last) Jack

 I wrote about it a while back, and I thought it was only at Ironman races, but it seems that I’ve become a real weather pox lately. I’m done whining about Ironman Wisconsin…well, I’m really not done but I’ll try to keep it to myself…but it seems that I bring out poor weather wherever I go .

Florida had great weather until we got down there in November. Then the first cold snap of the year came through. Other more deserving people overcame my pox and the weather straightened out for a while. I came back for Thanksgiving and for a couple of days, things were fine. Around my birthday, someone gave me crappy, cold weather for my 60th. I’ve never been one to give back presents, but that was one I didn’t want.

I drove back down to Florida only to suck down some cold weather with me, for their second cold snap. Again, the non-pox-afflicted people took over and the weather got really good again. It was fine up here in Michigan until I came back. The unseasonably warm weather shut off and the cold returned. Today, our first running day since I got back, turned cold with freezing rain, sleet, and some heavy wet snow.

I ran four and a half miles and walked a half to finish my five. All the time I was out it snowed, my glasses got wet and completely fogged over, and I couldn’t see a thing. After I finished, limping in on a sore hip…bursitis and it’s not from dancing at my birthday party…, the snow quit, the sun came out, and it’s nice again. Since I have meetings Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, all at 11:30, and since I’ll have to walk because we only have one car, the forecast is for 3-7 inches of snow.

I’d ask the classic question, “What did I do to deserve this?”, but the list would be much too long and I don’t want to give out personal secrets. I’ll wait until I run for public office for the skeletons to “come out of the closet” and, no, it’s not that kind of “coming out of the closet”. Besides, now that I’m elderly, I’ve forgotten the really bad things I’ve done and the “not so bad ones” seem almost good.

Friday morning we closed on the condo. Were now officially real estate poor. Anyone who wants to buy the Green Street house and the cottage, just call. We’ll make you a deal you can’t refuse. Since I’ll be going back to Florida on Thursday, Jean will be the land baroness of the North and I’ll be the land baron of the South. It’s not exactly fair because we don’t own the land under the mobe and Mom is the land baroness of my half of the condo, and we don’t own the land under that either. So I’m King of my own castle, a $27,000 mobe in Hudson, Florida, the Mecca for geezers like me

After giving away half of everything some years back you would think I would have learned. Like I’ve often told you, “I never said I was smart”.

Just (Spending Everything On Property Taxes And Insurance) Jack

 When I ran this morning it was 62 degrees and humid. It’s no wonder that my body tells me it doesn’t feel like Christmas Eve. I’m really glad that I didn’t have to run in snow or ice, not that Michigan has any of that either…YET!

Since I finished Ironman Wisconsin, I have scaled back my swimming (non-existent), biking (20 miles three times a week) and running (three or four times a week for a total of about 14 miles) and my weight shows it. Now that Christmas is almost here I feel like I’m in my 9th month of pregnancy and I appear to be eating for two.

Anyway, I’m not going to worry about it until after New Years Eve and then I’ll get back into a training mode. That includes eating the way I’m supposed to and stepping up the training. Oh, I don’t mean that I’ll automatically switch into running five miles on short days and ten or more miles on Sunday or biking thirty miles hard on short days and sixty or more miles on Saturday. I plan to gradually increase the mileage and wait for a while to increase the intensity. I’ll have to wait until the dome is taken off the pool at the YMCA before I can even think about swimming.

I’ve finally finished my Christmas shopping and I’m glad I don’t have to go out today and fight the long lines and desperate people at the mall. It’s easy to second guess your choices on presents or to think you didn’t get someone enough and one more present would be just right. I’ll fight those thoughts and stick with the plan.

Jean and I decided that, with closing on the condo in January which will give us four homes and all the attendant expenses, we wouldn’t get each other anything. I translate that into not getting each other very much, so that’s what I did.

I got her a couple of things over the internet that I probably would have paid for anyway later on. Along with that order I got myself a Triathlon calendar. A day later I got an e-mail that said the order would be held up for a while because the calendar was on back order. I sent an e-mail back saying that I didn’t need the calendar in March so cancel that part of the order and send the rest.

I didn’t hear anything for a few days and then I got an e-mail saying that the back order had been filled and the entire order was sent out. I checked the tracking number through UPS and it is scheduled for an on-time delivery December 26th. On the bright side, at least I won’t be wasting a bunch of wrapping paper. Also on the bright side, I think I’m way out of the running for “Husband of the Year 2006” anyway, and this won’t count against me in the competition for 2007.

Merry Christmas to All—

Just (Looking Forward To Fresh Shrimp Tonight) Jack

 Wickipedia defines arachnophobia as an “abnormal fear of spiders”. I’m not even mildly afraid of spiders but that doesn’t mean that I want them crawling all over me, nor do I feel obligated to share my house with them.

The problem isn’t the mobe at all. I haven’t seen any insects or spiders in here since I’ve been here. But the spiders seem to have taken over my car. I noticed them on the trip down to Florida a couple of weeks ago and lately I’ve seen quite a few spider webs from the dash to the passenger seat and from the steering wheel to the driver’s door.

The other day, as I was leaving the YMCA after a workout, I noticed a small black spider above my head near the sun visor. I waited for a traffic light and smooshed him in one of the McDonalds napkins that were in the glove compartment. No, I didn’t steal the napkins. When I stopped for lunch on the way down to Florida, I had taken more than I needed. If I had left them on the table they would just be thrown away, so into the car they went.

The next day, as I was driving down US-19 at 55 m.p.h., I felt something on my leg, looked down, and a spider was crawling through the hair on the inside of my knee. No, I don’t shave my legs! I guess I’m not a real biker or triathlete until I do, but I just can’t bring myself to try and explain it to the people here at Club Wildwood. They are, for the most part, a generation back, and wouldn’t understand. OK! Maybe it’s a “man thing” and I haven’t bridged that gap myself.

Anyway, I smacked the spider and he fell to the floor. I don’t know if he was alive or not, but I didn’t want to look and cause an accident. I can see it now. The Channel 8 news story would go, “An elderly man, 60 years old, was driving down US-19 the other day, and caused a 15 car accident. When he was interviewed at the scene, he stated that he lost control of his car when he saw a spider crawling on his leg.” I would be drummed out of the “real man club” and, with the shame, would be forced to move and not face my neighbors.

As I think back, I’m sure I know why the infestation occurred. The past fall I raked and carried 32 bags of leaves in four trips from the lake to the leaf drop off behind the City Garage in Hastings. I carried another few bags in two trips that Jean had raked up down there too. I’m guessing there were hundreds of spiders in the leaves. When I put the leaves in the bags, I’m sure they didn’t like that and crawled out before I dumped the leaves.

They probably have been living in the nooks and crannies of the Jeep ever since. I can’t imagine what they have been living off from in there, but Jean did ride with me down to Florida. Between carrying half a sandwich from Quiznos for an afternoon snack, and munching on pretzels, I’m sure she left them with plenty of food. Maybe the crumbs aren’t the insects they’re used to, but, as they say, any port in the storm.

I’m working out three times a week at the Y, riding three or four days a week, but only 20 miles each ride, and running three times a week, again at low mileage. My only chance at swimming is at the Y in the outdoor pool. The allergy doesn’t affect me as much in outdoor pools, but they put the cold weather tent over the pool last week, so that ends that until late February.

Just (Nursing Minor Aches And Pains) Jack

P.S. My thoughts and prayers are with the Dickinson family and Laura’s friends after her passing.

 I left Michigan on Tuesday morning at 5 AM to return to Florida and the drive turned out to be a struggle. The first hour and a half was through blowing snow with temps in the mid teens. The passing lane was slick so I drove behind whoever was going the slowest in the right lane.

The only complaint I have about my Jeep is that the windshield wipers don’t do a very good job when it’s cold. So as I followed that slow vehicle (a semi), a ton of dirty, salty, oil slicked water was sprayed on the windshield. I turned the wipers on and they touched the window at the very top and the very bottom but didn’t do anything in my field of vision.

I couldn’t see anything through the encrusted film so I hit the washer. The fluid came out and didn’t help at all on my side but the passenger, if there had been one, could see very well. I must have looked like an idiot driving down the highway leaning as far to the right as I could so I could see the road. I stopped for breakfast just North of Indianapolis and, by then, the wipers had warmed up enough to clean the whole window. Of course, by that time, it was sunny and I didn’t need them. I’m sure they’ll continue to work perfectly until I really need them again.

I had been hearing about a three truck accident that had I-69 closed down at the second Pendleton exit. I didn’t know where that was so I asked the crew at the Waffle House and told them about the wreck. The wreck was two exits farther South and one of the patrons said they were exiting traffic at the next exit. My waitress went ballistic ‘cuz her boyfriend was a trucker, but when I told her what time the accident had happened she knew it wasn’t him because he hadn’t left by then. She was so rattled that when I got my bill, I noticed that $6.80 plus $.40 tax equals $6.20 and, yes, I told them about the mistake.

The accident had happened at 7 AM and it was around nine, so I figured they were close to being cleaned up. I looked at the expressway before I got on and traffic was running smoothly, so I figured there weren’t any problems. WRONG!! I just got on and went 1/4 mile when the traffic slowed to a crawl. It took me an hour and a half to go 4 miles and I exited with a zillion trucks and a handful of cars.

Once off I figured I could take the detour, get back on quickly, and away I would go. WRONG!! The exit was at State Highway 67 and there was a traffic light at the crossroad. Only four trucks could make it through on each cycle, so we crawled for another 15 minutes before I made the turn onto 67. I got through that light and figured traffic would clear out quickly. WRONG!! There was a town right there and, that time, six trucks could get through each cycle at each of the three lights.

I turned South off the detour and took Highway 9 from Pendleton all the way past Indianapolis and halfway to Louisville. I made good time and saw parts of “Americana” I’ll probably never see again. I had lost about an hour and a half, but the traffic was light so I was moving right along.

I got to Nashville and decided to take Briley Parkway along the Northeast side of town and bypass the mass of Interstates that all come together. There was some construction but traffic wasn’t held up much since it was 2:30 PM their time. I got on I-24 headed for Chattanooga and figured I’d make up for some of the time I lost. WRONG!! Two miles down the road the traffic was stopped. Again it was a zillion trucks, a half zillion pickup trucks with gun racks in the back window, and a handful of cars.

There was construction and four lanes went down to two in a quarter mile. I was in the “patsy lane” where all the people in the lanes that are ending go flying by, then squeeze in ahead of us. It took a half hour to go that quarter mile and I figured traffic would speed right up. WRONG!! On the other side of the expressway there were two tanker trucks in an accident and the people on our side were going slow and gawking. I didn’t drop into a fit of road rage since the semis are way bigger than the Jeep and the guns in those gun racks in the pickups were probably loaded.

The rest of the trip went smoothly without incident. I stopped for the night in Dalton, Georgia and the temperature was predicted to drop into the high twenties. I had six cases of home-brew in the car and two of the cases had just been bottled. After bottling, the ale I had brewed needed warm temperatures for the yeast to carbonate the beer. I was afraid the cold would kill the yeast and it never would carbonate and I didn’t want the other beer to freeze either, so I carried all six cases of beer into the room and turned up the heat to 70 degrees. I’m sure the neighbors figured I was going to have one heck of a party that night and eagerly awaited their invitation. I must have looked really dumb carrying out those six cases at 3:30 AM when I awoke and left.

I stopped at another Waffle House for breakfast and sat at the counter. I was only there about twenty minutes, but during that time, with no one to talk to, I quietly observed what was going on. The cook was missing all of his upper front teeth and appeared to be a “little slow”. It only took me five minutes to see that the cook and my waitress, a woman around 35 that looked like she had just stepped out of the 1950s with “big hair”, had something going together. They were married, but based on the conversations, it was not to each other. And they both didn’t have any use for the “floater”, a youngish woman who worked the cash register, made coffee, cleaned tables, but didn’t waitress or cook so, to them, didn’t work.

Just (I’m Beginning To Hate That Drive) Jack