Broken Bella Beagle went in for surgery today. She's getting TPLO (tibial plateau leveling osteotomy) on her back left leg.

A description of the surgery's function:

All of the other cruciate repair techniques replace the cruciate ligament
in some manner.  TPLO instead changes the bone structure in the dog's 
knee joint so that the bone angles are different and the cruciate ligament
isn't as critical.

Rotating the tibial plateau until it is level changes the biomechanics 
of the knee joint. After leveling the tibial plateau, the patellar tendon
and the caudal cruciate ligament take over the function of the ruptured
cranial cruciate ligament. The cranial cruciate is then no longer needed.

Bella comes back tomorrow.

Womens pole vaulting debuted in the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney (an American, Stacy Dragila, won the gold). As more people are involved in extreme sports, pole vaulting has gained in popularity.

When I was in 9th grade, attending Benjamin Franklin Junior High School (renamed to Benjamin Franklin Middle School in 1986, go fig), I was on the track team for a while. "A while" because I was kicked off the team. "Why?" you may ask. Because I was in the drama club.

Kid you not.

I had made arrangement with the drama teacher to be absent from the play practices so that I could run track. Track was from 2:30 until about 4, drama was from 3 until 5. I could run track, then hightail it over to drama for any practice I needed.

The track coach, a one Miss Ann Davies, didn't think this was reasonable, and told me that, since I had a part in the spring play, I wasn't allowed to run in track. I couldn't do both. Earlier, I had actually asked said Miss Davies if I could learn to pole vault. Pole vaulting was taught at Ben Franklin, usually in the 7th grade, but new vaulters were taught each.

New male vaulters, that is.

Ann Davies informed me that she was not going to allow me to learn pole vaulting because it was a waste of time. There was no need to learn pole vaulting because girls didn't pole vault.

Ah, we see where this is going, eh?

I believe Ann Davies thought I was a nuisance, and used any available excuse to remove me from the team. I may have been a nuisance, asking for an opportunity to fly with the boys, but that choice allow me to pole vault or not wasn't hers to make.

And now we see women pole vaulters in the Olympics. I'm not one of them. To which I have but four words to say:

"Fuck you, Ann Davies."

If I meet you on the street, I will spit on you.

I just heard from the UPA regarding the IS programmer position I applied for a couple months ago:

Date:    Wed, 18 Aug 2004 16:50:36 -0600
From:  	 Sandie Hammerly
To:  	 Kitt Hodsden
Subject: Still interested?

Hi Kitt:

Sorry to be so long in getting back to on the contract IS
programmer position - But if you are still interested, we
would like to make you an offer.

Basically we would like to consider at least 20 hours per
week....and maybe more....depending on other commitments
that you have.

We would have to work out all the details, you know 
contracts and short and long term work plans....But if you
are still interested, we can offer {editorily removed} an
hour to start....

Interested?
 
Sandie Hammerly
Executive Director
Ultimate Players Association

Heh. Interested? You betcha! An opportunity to combine two things I love doing (programming and ultimate). A chance to be known by thousands! What a deal!

Kris and I have a house policy that ensures life-long marital bliss. It goes like this:

You cook, I clean.  I cook, you clean.

Simple, yet very powerful. It means that, when it comes to food at least, all chores are shared. Of course, there's wiggle room in that policy. Health, deadlines and other issues, so sometimes the same person cooks and cleans. Fortunately, that's pretty rare.

When we're lazy, the policy shifts slightly to:

I order, you pick up.  You order, I pick up.

Usually, I do the ordering, Kris does the pick up.

Tonight, after returning home from the ASA MVP workout class, Kris did not want to leave the house. He offered pizza for dinner, I agreed, and he ordered.

Uh oh. He ordered? That means, oh no. I have to go pick up? Ugh!

Kris must have sensed this, because he offered roshambo instead of handing me the car keys, "Best 2 of 3. It was marital advise." (documented on our wedding video). So, I agreed.

And won decisively in the first two throws.

It was a crushing defeat. Worse roshambo ever. Kris ran away with the Cranberries, "In your head-ed! In your heh-eh-eh-ed!" ringing in his ears.

Poor Kris. Never rosham away what you already have.

Today, only Kris and I attended class, as Lisa was working this evening. We started with abbreviated ladders, each x2:

• LR-RL
• Outsides LR
• Ali-shuffle
• Inside-Outside-Inside-Outside
• Outside-Inside hop scotch
• Hip twists, R foot first, then L foot first, then alternating

Gino didn't think I had warmed up properly, and asked me to stretch further before continuing. No problem, as my left hamstring is, once again, bothering me.

G continued us in the circuit training format, with one person doing one exercise while the other person does another. Kri started with the T drill (five sets): run 10 steps (about 10 yards forward, shuffle 5 yards to the right, back 10 yards to the left, back again 5 yards to the right, then the 10 yards backward to the starting point. His times lowered each time he ran his 5 sprints, from 11 seconds to 10.6 seconds.

Meanwhile, I was doing 10 side-to-side jumps over a cone, then sprinting forward 10 yards or so on the last landing. The goal was to not drop a foot backward after the last landing, just explode forward at the landing. I had good ones and bad ones, but got better at the end.

We switched. My T drill times were 11.6, 11.5, 11.4, 11.4, 11.6 and 10.7. We're convinced either I cheated on the last one (by not going all the way to the side cones), or G was trigger happy with the stopwatch.

Next came weightlifting. Kris started with one footed squat / leg press, while I did one legged leg extensions. I started with 15# for the leg extensions, but was doing fine with 25# on my last set, so I can probably increase next time. I had difficulty with the leg press, as I was using my glutes more than my quads. At Kris' suggestion, I dropped my foot lower on the push pad, and managed to get more quad action in the lifts.

3 sets
toe touches 
side to sides with med ball

sumo squats

We then finished with abs, as usual.

• bicycles
• russian crunches
• overhead abs, V ups
• lower back
• side to sides, round the world
• partner push down with med ball
• 6" - 12" leg holds