August 14, 2008

Olympic Swimming

I'm watching Olympic swimming. When the backstroke was being swum, I thought, "I could do that" because when we had a pool, I could do the backstroke across the pool.

Then I was figuring out how far that was in our pool because we didn't have a standard Olympic-size pool. When the pool guy, who eventually got the job, was measuring and talking with the city engineer, they decided there was a small problem with an easement running through our property and that the pool would have to be at an angle to the house and parallel to the creek running through the backyard.

So, the 50-meter pool with the sculpted rock formations and waterfalls one pool contractor had envisioned and drawn wasn't going to fit.

So, the pool was 24 feet by 15 feet -- a not-even-8-meter pool. Geez, I could do the backstroke for 8 fucking meters. Okay, so I would drown if I had to go 50 meters.

But I could still look pretty good hanging onto the side of the pool deck, looking up at the scoreboard, after the race. I could do that. You know, rip the goggles off, toss them onto the pool deck, and look up at the scoreboard. I could do that.

Except how deep is it at the edge there? That could be a problem -- not being able to touch the bottom -- definitely a drowning possibility there.

Speaking of the pool, I recall that the neighbor girls were in the pool when the big '03 blackout happened. Yeah, that was shortly after I tried to plug the heating element into the electric stove; and I managed to dodge a big blue lightning bolt that flew out of the stove top and over my left shoulder. I'm pretty sure that was the cause of it.

Posted by Bill at August 14, 2008 11:55 PM
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