I spent Sat walking miles and miles throughout Sydney, finding two great pools: Boy Charlton on the bay edge of the Botanical Gardens, a 50m outdoor pool, open daily tot he public; and the new Ian Thorpe Aquatic Center. I had to swim there, so i did an easy 2000m for a post-meet/post-season recovery swim. Great place, highly recommend it. Would also be funt to try the Boy Charlton, Chuck and Tom, when you go through Sydney.
Rather than take a tourist trap boat cruise, take the ferry from Circular Quay to Manly Beach - you'll see the city from the water coming and going, and can check out the Pacific Ocean at Surfer Beach at Manly. I also got a quick 50m swim in the Pacific (within the shark net enclosure!), so i have now swum on both sides of this continent - in the Indian and the Pacific Oceans - and have also now swum on both sides of the Pacific!
Got to run for my plane to Singapore - an 8 hour flight. Ug!
See you in Manhattan Beach!
Dan
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Thursday, April 24, 2008
WHY???
I like the lessons learned. We need to keep these for Sweden. Does anyone know why you didn't have these issues at Stanford? Is it possible that we, the women, were not there to keep you all in line??
Just Kidding!!
All of you have safe and fun travels!! We're thinking about you and look forward to your return.
Just Kidding!!
All of you have safe and fun travels!! We're thinking about you and look forward to your return.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
12 Lessons learned
12 learning and discovery lessons:
1. Keep your keys, cell phone, and wallet in the zippable pocket of your MCC sweatshirt and zip it up.
2. Let someone else drive, so you can just back-seat drive and criticize and make fun of the windshield wipers going instead of the turn signals, the near misses, the wrong turns, the left-side-of-the-road curb brushes,and the wrong-side-of-the-road, right-hand drivers-wheel parallel-parking attempts.
4. Trade sweat shirts by watching the master trader, Dan (pretty easy since our long- sleeve, high-quality, colorful, good-artwork shirts were the classiest around).
4. Have redundancy of cameras, that is, if you really want a video of your killer, body-breaking 200 fly, and train the cameraman, even if he is a highpowered CEO;
5. Go to the bathroom immediately before every race.
6. For relays, practice starts and handoffs many times with the exact team you pick, so that your fastest and most-experienced swimmers are not too quick off the blocks.
7. Have at least 5 males and 5 femals register as MMM. Enter five A, B,CD and E MMM teams per free and medley relays so that if there is another Jim Hallett or Frank Buckley type cop out, we can choose relay teams with all MMM team members present.
8. If the above cannot be completed for relays, add some ringers from other teams in advance of the meet who are of the right age to substitute for our regulars and who register as Manhattan Magnums as well registering for their water-polo team. (Forget about trying to reason with FINA).
9. Learn to blog earlier rather than later, and post results when the readers are hungry for information, take more pictures, and post more pictures,
10. Get in better shape.
11. Start workouts with Pat.
1. Keep your keys, cell phone, and wallet in the zippable pocket of your MCC sweatshirt and zip it up.
2. Let someone else drive, so you can just back-seat drive and criticize and make fun of the windshield wipers going instead of the turn signals, the near misses, the wrong turns, the left-side-of-the-road curb brushes,and the wrong-side-of-the-road, right-hand drivers-wheel parallel-parking attempts.
4. Trade sweat shirts by watching the master trader, Dan (pretty easy since our long- sleeve, high-quality, colorful, good-artwork shirts were the classiest around).
4. Have redundancy of cameras, that is, if you really want a video of your killer, body-breaking 200 fly, and train the cameraman, even if he is a highpowered CEO;
5. Go to the bathroom immediately before every race.
6. For relays, practice starts and handoffs many times with the exact team you pick, so that your fastest and most-experienced swimmers are not too quick off the blocks.
7. Have at least 5 males and 5 femals register as MMM. Enter five A, B,CD and E MMM teams per free and medley relays so that if there is another Jim Hallett or Frank Buckley type cop out, we can choose relay teams with all MMM team members present.
8. If the above cannot be completed for relays, add some ringers from other teams in advance of the meet who are of the right age to substitute for our regulars and who register as Manhattan Magnums as well registering for their water-polo team. (Forget about trying to reason with FINA).
9. Learn to blog earlier rather than later, and post results when the readers are hungry for information, take more pictures, and post more pictures,
10. Get in better shape.
11. Start workouts with Pat.
GRAND FINALE
Now I know why we haven't seen Jim Hallett!
The recent posts really convey the flavor of the meet! Not sure now if I regret the decision not to go!
Chuck, no medal on that 200 fly? I had noted the amazing time posted for Tom's 200 IM, and mentioned it
to Dick--knew it had to be a typo since no headlines on the sports page.
It's been fun to hear about your successes--now that you've gotten into the swing of sending dispatches
home, it's a shame it's all over! We look forward to more stories when you return to the Magnum pool!
The recent posts really convey the flavor of the meet! Not sure now if I regret the decision not to go!
Chuck, no medal on that 200 fly? I had noted the amazing time posted for Tom's 200 IM, and mentioned it
to Dick--knew it had to be a typo since no headlines on the sports page.
It's been fun to hear about your successes--now that you've gotten into the swing of sending dispatches
home, it's a shame it's all over! We look forward to more stories when you return to the Magnum pool!
Update on Jim Hallett
Rather than bore you with official results, we want to update you on very serious developments on the Jim Hallett FINA investigation.
Your magnificent teammates initiated an appeal to FINA's rash action. When we threatened that Jim Hallett would sue FINA, it turned UGLY. In addition now to being barred from any future Master swim venues for life (including SPMA and USMS),FINA has stripped Jim of any official or unofficial swim results (NT's in Jim's case). In effect, Jim has disappeared completely from the record books and is now among the "disappeared" as in the dirty war in Peru and Argentina. It is as if he never existed.
The good news is while we could not appeal the permanent disbarrment, we were able to negotiate the one million Euro fine (FINA does not accept American dollars anymore) down to reimbursement by Jim to FINA of 10,000 euros and his reimbursement of all reasonable and necessary expenses to MMM competitors in Perth.
In addition, FINA has ordered Jim Hallett to pay the full cost of the MMM Banner, Marquee, FINA registration, and $220 for Tom losing the key to his room.
Tom Bourke pointed out the unfair adverse impact on the totally innocent spouse of Jim Hallett. FINA thanked Tom for the information and imposed the E10,000 euro fine and restitution amounts on Mary Ellen and ordered the remaining team members to notify her in case the aforementioned notificationis not provided to her directly by her formerly beloved spouse.
We decided to buy Jim a souvenir of Australia to assuage his undoubted massive guilt. We found a T-shirt being worn by many fashiunable swimmers with the Perth FINA Masters World Championship logo on it. I has the names of all male FINA world championship competitors on it, including all MCC registrants, incluidng one James Hallett. So the concept was to buy the shirt, cut out Jim's name and present him with both his name and the shirt with a small hole in it. But the concept failed for two reasons, one the shirt got sold out, and two, the shirt cost %50 and Jim is not worth it.
Your magnificent teammates initiated an appeal to FINA's rash action. When we threatened that Jim Hallett would sue FINA, it turned UGLY. In addition now to being barred from any future Master swim venues for life (including SPMA and USMS),FINA has stripped Jim of any official or unofficial swim results (NT's in Jim's case). In effect, Jim has disappeared completely from the record books and is now among the "disappeared" as in the dirty war in Peru and Argentina. It is as if he never existed.
The good news is while we could not appeal the permanent disbarrment, we were able to negotiate the one million Euro fine (FINA does not accept American dollars anymore) down to reimbursement by Jim to FINA of 10,000 euros and his reimbursement of all reasonable and necessary expenses to MMM competitors in Perth.
In addition, FINA has ordered Jim Hallett to pay the full cost of the MMM Banner, Marquee, FINA registration, and $220 for Tom losing the key to his room.
Tom Bourke pointed out the unfair adverse impact on the totally innocent spouse of Jim Hallett. FINA thanked Tom for the information and imposed the E10,000 euro fine and restitution amounts on Mary Ellen and ordered the remaining team members to notify her in case the aforementioned notificationis not provided to her directly by her formerly beloved spouse.
We decided to buy Jim a souvenir of Australia to assuage his undoubted massive guilt. We found a T-shirt being worn by many fashiunable swimmers with the Perth FINA Masters World Championship logo on it. I has the names of all male FINA world championship competitors on it, including all MCC registrants, incluidng one James Hallett. So the concept was to buy the shirt, cut out Jim's name and present him with both his name and the shirt with a small hole in it. But the concept failed for two reasons, one the shirt got sold out, and two, the shirt cost %50 and Jim is not worth it.
Next to last day
We are winding down, with only the 400 free left for Chuck.
Chuck will come by in a few minutes to give official results but in the back I got 17th and beat my qualifying time by about 10 seconds, so I am pleased to have hit 5 for 5 in qualifying times and tied Bob in the 50 free split on our relay (down to the nearest 100th of a second, of course I surely would have won if our timers simply had more precision, say down to a thousanth or 10 thousanth of a second. I will let Chuck tell about today's little catastophe (the filming of his 200 fly not coming out), the lesson to be learned in Sweden is that we need redundancy (2 cameras) because if something can go wrong it will, go wrong, and that we need some training in using other people's cameras.
So I will leave the official blog to Chuck.
P.S. we took the Beach Reporter photos with three views of Chuck, Dan, and me and our banner, the pool, and a Perth banner, taken by an Australian mate of ours who won a gold medal in the freestyle relay. (So I have a picture of me with a gold medal, which Chuck accused me of intending to pass it off as my own in classic Jim Hallett/MCC tradition.)
Chuck will come by in a few minutes to give official results but in the back I got 17th and beat my qualifying time by about 10 seconds, so I am pleased to have hit 5 for 5 in qualifying times and tied Bob in the 50 free split on our relay (down to the nearest 100th of a second, of course I surely would have won if our timers simply had more precision, say down to a thousanth or 10 thousanth of a second. I will let Chuck tell about today's little catastophe (the filming of his 200 fly not coming out), the lesson to be learned in Sweden is that we need redundancy (2 cameras) because if something can go wrong it will, go wrong, and that we need some training in using other people's cameras.
So I will leave the official blog to Chuck.
P.S. we took the Beach Reporter photos with three views of Chuck, Dan, and me and our banner, the pool, and a Perth banner, taken by an Australian mate of ours who won a gold medal in the freestyle relay. (So I have a picture of me with a gold medal, which Chuck accused me of intending to pass it off as my own in classic Jim Hallett/MCC tradition.)
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
OUCH!!!
Sorry about the disqualifications!! Thanks for the times anyway.
Jim,
You may want to stay MIA for awhile.
Jim,
You may want to stay MIA for awhile.
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