I happened to see on Facebook today (I’m never on Facebook!) that my dear friend Scott Starkey was in an old-media digitization process and was asking for advice on getting audio from a cassette tape. Of a National Velveeta sketch we did on the radio in 1994. I’m the /archivist/, I’ve spent untold hours organizing and digitizing old VHS tapes and Hi8 tapes and scanning photos. I’ve seen that same tape in my cassette tape collection for years. So surely it’ll be the work of moments to send him a copy of the audio I surely captured years ago.

I don’t seem to have ever captured it.

And to add insult to injury, I don’t seem to know where cassette tapes are in the house right now. Fortunately, Shaun was able to lay hands on his copy this afternoon and I digitized it and cleaned it up a bit (the cassette we had is taped straight off the radio and included a Janet Jackson song in the middle).

Attack of the Were-Corn
written and performed by
National Velveeta

produced and engineered by Rick Mummy
(special pop-corn assistance by Liz Thelen)

featuring

• Brian Terjung as Lil’ Jimmy and the Customer
• Mike Monahan as Spot and the Colonel (Kernal)
• Scott Starkey as Dr. Joe Bob Feinstein
• Shaun Himmerick as Lance Larson
• Mark French as the Old Man
• Carrie Gatke as the Secretary
• Fuzzy Gerdes as the Narrator

© 1994 National Velveeta
originally broadcast 31 October 1994 on WAZY 96.5-FM

Listen!

There are a couple of problems to solve with swimming headphones and I’ve tried a number of options.

The first is just the waterproof headphones themselves. I usually wear earplugs when I swim, so I want a headphone that has a nice seal so that it functions as a earplug as well. That also helps with the audio—it turns out it’s noisy to swim, so a tight seal helps with that. They also need to stay in—I’ve had trouble with earplugs with cords where they end up coming loose and/or falling out of my ears. I had a pair with bad over-the-ear clip things, but there are probably better ones of those out there.

The one kind I haven’t tried are the bone conducting headphones. Supposedly as long as they’re tight against your head they work fine. While I was writing this up, I see that there are $40–80 models, where I think they all used to be $200, so maybe I’ll try a pair sometime.

The other part is the audio player—bluetooth doesn’t work underwater, so unfortunately you can’t just have fancy waterproof bluetooth headphones and get your audio from your phone where all your music and podcasts are. You have to carry the audio player with you in the water.

I haven’t yet found a great solution in this regard. I’ll say that for me it’s compounded because I want to listen to audiobooks or podcasts while I swim, which means I need to manage the content more closely than if I just wanted to fill a player with some gym music.

There’s a company that used to modify iPod nanos into waterproof players, which was great because at least then you could Apple’s tools for how to automatically fill an iPod. That part was fine, but I ran into my issues with all the earbuds I’ve tried so far.

So my solution for now is the Sony Waterproof Walkman.

It’s a single piece player and headphones. The headphones have a nice seal and the design of the whole thing fits under my swim cap and it’s rare to have leaking problems. It could be a /little/ louder (I sometimes have trouble hearing a narrator when I’m swimming vigorously).

The audio management is lame - it mounts on my Mac as a drive and you just dump mp3s in a folder. So you have to get mp3s and any management is pulling files into or out of the folder. And the play controls are pretty much in-order or random. I gave up on podcasts and switched to audiobooks and even then I was having a lot of trouble with audiobooks with chapters restarting or skipping to the next one, so because I’m a nerd I bit the bullet and I just turn all my chaptered audiobooks into one big mp3 file and then every time I swim, one of my post-swim tasks is to open up the mp3 in an editor and just snip off the part I just listened to and resave it right on the little mounted drive. I finished a 10 hour audiobook this morning.

Time: 35:14
Pace: 11:22/M
Place: 482 / 1112
Place in Male: 277 / 468
Place in Division (M50-54): 11 / 19

I hadn’t been running a lot this year and so I decided to do a couch-to-5K program just for the structure of it. I picked a random one from a Google search with a cartoon of an Avocado on a treadmill on the chart (I’m not going to link to it) and worked backwards from this week. I guess it worked because I ran the thing just over 30 minutes, which is my usual “pretty OK” 5K time.

Official Results:
Time: 30:14
Pace: 9:44 min/mi
Place: 859 / 2747
Place in Sex: 545 / 1273
Place in Division (M50-54): 59 / 138

• October 9 at 1–2 pm Visitation, 2 pm Service at Dunbar Funeral Home, 3926 Devine St, Columbia, SC
• October 14 at 11 am at the Strand Theatre, 717 Clay St, Vicksburg, MS

February 4, 1954 – August 15, 2022

Patricia Reid was born February 4, 1954 in Vicksburg, MS, where she lived most of her life. She died peacefully in her sleep on August 15, 2022 in Columbia, SC. She is survived by her son and daughter-in-law Christopher and Katie Reid of Columbia, SC and their kids Caleb (12) and Safi (5), her daughter and son-in-law Erica Reid Gerdes and Fuzzy Gerdes of Chicago, IL, and her sister Linda Antoine of Vicksburg, MS. Tricia was preceded in death by her husband David in 2007 and her parents George and Juanita Bane.

Tricia loved her family, friends, classic rock, Jason Momoa, and all animals—especially cats. Called Mama Reid by many, she and David provided a safe space in their home for many friends of Christopher and Erica in Vicksburg in the 80s and 90s. They were especially known for their New Years bonfires and for taking their kids to see live music.

During the last week of her life, Tricia made many new friends and ate many delicious meals. She was excited for the future.

Christopher and Erica take comfort in the fact that their parents are now reunited with each other and are likely making each other laugh, which was their favorite activity in life.

A memorial will be held at a later date.

Donations can be made in Tricia’s memory to the following organizations:

Humane Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals

National Organization for Tardive Dyskinesia

NAMI: National Alliance on Mental Illness

The Big Shoulders is an open-water swimming race held in Lake Michigan at Ohio Street Beach in downtown Chicago, which is where I first started training for open water swimming. So some September morning years ago we just ran into this event happening at our little training spot. Since I had trained up to 2.4 miles swimming for my Ironman, longer distances felt achievable, and Erica and I had a lot of fun swimming the 2.2 miles of the Point to La Pointe. The Big Shoulders had one lap at 2.5K (~1.5 miles) and two laps at 5K (3.1 miles) I was intrigued and put the race on my race to-do list.

I knew the race was in September, so in 2016 sometime around August I tried to sign up, but the race was sold out. The next year, I thought of it earlier in the summer, maybe June, and also found that the race was sold out. So that year I found out when the race sign-ups started (the next year, in March) and put that date in my calendar. So I was finally registered for Big Shoulders 2018.

Big Shoulders 2018 was canceled on race day due to dangerous lake conditions.

Boo. OK, I signed up for 2019 at the 5K distance. I would train real hard all year and knock this thing out.

I did not train real hard in 2019.

A couple weeks before the race I took advantage of the race organizers’ general offer for distance switching and dropped down to the 2.5K. The day of the race the water was cold and choppy. There was some concern the race might be called again, but it was not. When I got in the water with my wave and started swimming, I just didn’t feel right. Since I started swimming seriously as an adult and trained up for these longer distances, one of the great things about swimming is just how right it all feels when you get in the water and start executing a good stroke. This was the opposite. The water was cold, even in my wetsuit, and I was not confident in my swimming. As I mentally looked ahead to the length of the swim, I was having trouble envisioning success. Even in a wetsuit, even with all the safety personnel around, it didn’t seem smart to continue. So I tapped out even before the first 1.4 mile buoy by swimming straight over to one of the rescue boats. I still think it was the right choice but it does still sting. I’ve written about so many races on this blog and I didn’t write this up back in 2019. But I came out of the water determined to come back and finish this race.

Big Shoulders 2020 was canceled due to the COVID-19 worldwide pandemic.

So spoilers, Big Shoulders 2021 happened yesterday and I completed the 2.5K distance.

I’ve been swimming just a little in the gym and fair amount out in open water, including doing the 1.2 mile distance of an A Long Swim event up in Winnetka in August. That one was just choppy enough and I had a little trouble keeping on course, so my watch says I swam 1.5 miles, so I knew I was ready for the distance and for a little rough water.

The conditions yesterday were nearly perfect. The water was 70° and flat and calm, under a beautiful blue sky. I was a little nervous all morning, just because of my failure two years ago, but as soon as I got in the water it was all felt right. I was very focussed on getting that first 1/4 mile buoy and then once I was past that, it felt like I had already won. The second leg of the triangle route was great—I was warmed up and had a confident stroke and I started to wonder if I should have signed up for the 5K. Coming back down the last leg along Jean Baptiste Point DuSable Lake Shore Drive I started to get tired and was glad I had not.

Me and Andrea Strening, Big Shoulders 2021

Official Results
Time: 1:30:07
Place: 305 / 311
Place in Male: 161 / 163
Place in Wetsuit: 132 / 136
Place in Male Wetsuit: 74 / 76

I was very excited to be asked by my friend Erik to be on his YouTube series Edawg Eats to try a Chicago-style hot dog at Budacki’s Drive-In. Thrill to my pandemic hair! Admire my classy Malört hat! Leave an angry comment on YouTube to tell us how to say “Budacki”!

Time: 31:59
Pace: 10:17
Overall Place: 1210 / 2780
Place in Male: 718 / 1308
Place in M45-49: 82 / 147

I’ve tried, as many people have, to read David Foster Wallace’s giant novel Infinite Jest several times over the years and it’s sat on my “to be read soon” pile in the bedroom for years, mocking me. Recently, I realized that the 372 Pages We’ll Never Get Back podcast had tricked me into reading several really terrible books, so surely there was a podcast out there that would hand-hold me through reading this supposedly-great book. I searched and couldn’t find one, so I decided I’d have to make it and hand-hold myself.

I tricked my good friend Kate into reading the book with me and we’re releasing an episode every week (or so). The podcast is called the Howling Fanpod (that’s an Infinite Jest joke) and so of course the website is Terrible Photos of People I Love. There’s an intro episode and then 6 real ones so far — there will be 13 by the time we’re done.

Time: 49:07
Pace: 15:49 min/mile
Overall Place: 2190 / 2303
Place in Gender: 923 / 944
Place in Age Group (M45-49): 72 / 77

What do you do after you run 13 half-marathons in 12 months? Run another one the next month!

Steve and I were supposed to run this race last year, for what turned out to be the first race of my Baker’s Dozen, but he got sick. So when I was signing up for the Chicago Spring Half-Marathon there was an option to sign up for this one as well as a short “series” and so I suggested to Steve that we run it as a do-over. He agreed and so we’ve had it on the schedule for most of the year.

Steve broke a rib a few months ago, so he hadn’t been running, but he was game to try and I’m really proud of him for getting out and pushing himself. Erica asked if we were going to hold hands as we crossed the finish line, and how do you answer a question like that?

Time: 3:11:27
Pace: 14:37 min/mi
Place: 7442 / 7815
Place in Gender: 3393 / 3500
Place in Division (M45-49): 351 / 368

I wouldn’t say we trained hard core all summer, but we trained — Erica joined a gym with a pool up in Evanston and she helped me get my act together and signed me up as well. We got out for some open water swims and did a real 1-mile race and then did the swim in the Chicago Triathlon. We were both a little nervous about our distances, but we were ready.

And then there were very high winds and the race was canceled.

It was very disappointing, especially because the water wasn’t that bad inside the protected walls of Ohio Street Beach, but the Parks District wasn’t able to get their safety boats into the area.

So, we’re waiting for next year’s sign up with bated breath…

There’s a giant asterisk on this year’s results, because Erica and I signed up for the International Distance, but while I was out on the run, they announced that because of the heat they were reducing the International run from 10K to 5K. When I heard the announcement out on the train, I was indignant. Sure, other people could quit if they wanted, but I’m an old hand at triathlons. And then I took stock of my situation and noticed that I was already walking and that probably this was not the race to push myself to the limits for. I think my 40 minute 5K shows the wisdom of that decision.

Time: 3:33:19
Place: 847 / 986
Place in Gender: 374 / 450
Place in Age Group (M45-49): 32 / 49
Place in Age Group (Male 40+): 247 / 303

Race Splits
Swim - 49:51
T1 - 10:41
Bike - 1:43:12
T2 - 8:25
Run - 40:17