Weekend - Texas Style

WARNING - LONG POST AGAIN

As most of you know from recent posts, I went to Texas this past weekend because several weeks ago, my Mom called me asking if I would come to Texas to help her boyfriend work on constructing a massive deck that surrounds her new pool in the backyard. Of course, I am always up for a construction project, so off to Texas I went.

I arrived in Austin late Friday night, unpacked, and was excited to get going Saturday morning. Her boyfriend (also named Michael) had to work until 4:30am in the morning on Friday night to meet his deadline on another construction project. So, he was a little slow waking up on Saturday, understandable. But we still put in a few hours, dug post holes, poured concrete, etc, etc and we stopped around 4PM because we needed some more material and I didn't want to kill him. We cleaned up, went to Home Depot, went out and had a nice dinner at a local restaurant, rented a movie and called it a night. Sunday morning I was awaken by a nasty thunderstorm at 7am, I said I guess we won't be getting an early start today? Around 8am I rolled out of bed and checked the weather, "rain until noon today". When mom woke up, we headed out to run some errands and scope out the triathlon course that I will be running REAL SOON! Nice course, didn't seem too bad. Got back to Mom's around 1pm and Michael was still too tired from yesterday to work today. So, the remainder of Sunday was shot. When I woke up on Monday morning and I was motivated to put in at least a few hours of work, by myself if I had to. After all, Mom paid all this money to fly me down there I hadn't done much work. I began working (and eventually got help) and before I had to catch my flight home we were able to finish framing a 16x16 area of the deck.

The flight home was terrible! I had to take a puddle jumper from Houston to Dulles (no not Dallas, Dulles - a 2.5 hour flight. That was the worst flight I have ever been on. Bouncy, bumpy, loud, ugh! But I made it home safe and sound.

Also, while I was in TX, I did mange to workout on Sunday (since I wasn't constructing anything) I worked out at a local gym. I told them that I was in town and considering relocating to the area and they game me a week pass. Really nice gym and they are open 24 hours. Pretty cool. So Sunday night I went for a swim. During my swim, I meet 2 Ironman finishers! WOW, talk about intimidating. But like most triathletes that I have meet, they were really nice. One guy even took a few minutes to help me with my swimming. Good people.

A couple of posts ago, I mentioned that I had taken the CISSP exam and was worried about the results. Worry no more, I PASSED! YAY! I found out yesterday that I had passed that horrid exam. I am so glad because I didn't want to sit through another 6 hour exam.

I the midst of everything else going on, I still have been training hard. The training sessions are getting much longer and more difficult to fit in my schedule. But with only a month to go and CISSP the exam behind me I am not letting up now. My swimming is getting a little better. I actually have 2 swim coaches...one cheap one expensive. This allows me to gain the news skills I need from the expensive coach and work on strength and endurance with the other coach. I am improving, so I hope it really pays off over the next couple of weeks.

Thanks for reading,
Michael