« Printer peeve | Main | Pool »

Too slow and too fast

I have officially gotten back in the pool. I've started attending a swim with a different coach. It's even in a different pool than I usually swim in. And there's a new group of people to swim with. But there's one thing that's the same as always.

We had three full lanes yesterday, and coach Oleg put me in the fastest lane. I struggled in vain to keep up, and I got lapped a couple times. As I paused in the middle of a 100 to let other swimmers pass, I gave Oleg a slightly exasperated look. He said, "I know, you're too slow for this lane, but you're too fast for these guys," with a nod toward the next lane. He was right, but dammit, I am always in this position. Either I get my butt kicked in the fast lane or I go nuts trying to pass everyone in the slower lane. It was the same way in the other pool with a completely different group of swimmers.

Even as I get back in shape, I'll never be as fast as the "fast" swimmers. But at least I am back in the pool! I love the feeling of finishing a good hard swim.

As for the photo above, well, yeah, I am a geek. A couple of weeks ago I spent a few hours labeling every single USB, firewire, and power cable and hub in the vicinity of the computer. The most time-consuming part was untangling the cables to figure out which went with what. But it's so satisfying now to know exactly what I'm unplugging when I have to make room for something else! Like, say, an external hard drive for making backups.

February 6, 2007 10:14 AM