New Projects
February 03, 2012
Being a professional triathlete and coach is a great ‘job’. A dream job if you will…with the exception of dream job pay. But, even though we are staying in the US this year, the past 2 years of travelling have been great even though they took a bit of a toll. I still can’t and won’t bring myself to say it was ever a tough day at the “office” because unlike a lot of athletes out there, I have sat in an office. And, compared to a tough day at a real office, there are no real tough days in the triathlete office. I mean there are, but however you look at it, a tough day at the triathlon office happens when you are still doing something you love to do. And, if you don’t love to do it, then you should change “jobs”.
But, like any other job, at times just thinking about training and racing can be too all encompassing. So, like normal folks we’ve got some ‘hobbies’ outside of our jobs or at least interests. Everyone has them, for a lot of folks reading this blog their hobby or interest is triathlon. Amy has a bit of knack or interest in HGTV…and it’s good that we don’t have cable. She’s been entering the HGTV dream home Sweepstakes at least daily. And, like a lot of triathletes, we have a ton of finishers medals. She’s always been kind of artsy fartsy. And, since we don’t have dream job pay, we have a yard that is far from a dream home yard. She’s got a number of ‘projects’ on her list…fun ones not the crap ones that everyone does daily and weekly…we still do those too. First up is to figure out what to do with a lot of the finishers medals we have. There are a few ideas, and I think that she has settled on one, so when she starts, she’s going to blog it. She also wants the yard to look better. It’s taken me 12 years to go from lush manicured water drinking drought non-resistant St. Augustine grass to weeds…and she doesn’t like it. So, some landscaping or at least landscaping ‘plans’ are on her list. And, they will be “water-wise”...I’m going to make sure of that.
Mine are pretty simple. Outside of the crap projects that everyone deals with, I enjoy a couple of things…and I can intertwine them without trying too hard. I enjoy hunting. I am a bit of a conservationist as well…and the two are very related. So, my first project is to build a rifle. I’m not going all out, but I’m going to buy a relatively inexpensive one, take it apart, replace some parts and hope it doesn’t “Backfire”! Literally! The second project is to help Amy with her landscaping projects, and install a rainwater collection system. It’s the future, really.
What’s the timeline on these? I have no idea. I have until early November to build my rifle…that’s when deer season starts. The finishers medal project has no real timeline, but you have to finish one before you can start the next. The yard will be an ongoing process. It will probably be best to wait until after the summer and after the season of racing to get started as by then any remaining grass in the yard will likely be dead and gone…but we’ll see. I’m sure that I’ll also enlist the assistance of my Dad the Master Gardner in Amy’s yard project. So, stay tuned. First and foremost though, we’re more focused than ever on the task at hand of being the best triathletes we can be…hence the floating timeline for the bigger project.
Posted by Roger at 10:53PM 0 comments