One Thing

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People use a variety of criteria when placing their votes. Some people vote straight-ticket for the party of their choice, a practice that I once despised until I realized how party-loyal and homogenous most Washington politicians seem to be. Some people vote for a particular candidate who somehow attracted their interest. Some people vote against a particular candidate who somehow ticked them off. Some people vote against the incumbent, regardless of who he/she is.

For some, the choice hinges on a single issue. They vote for whichever candidate matches their view most closely on that issue. One of my relatives used abortion as her issue. She voted for whoever was more anti-choice, hoping that somehow that candidate would be able to restrict abortion access. In the 2004 and 2008 presidential races, I voted for the candidates that promised to end the Iraq war faster. In the 2010 governor’s race, I voted for the candidate that supported green energy more than fossil fuels. As people’s interests, views, and needs change, different issues might be top priority at different times. Also, some people tend not to vote unless they get worked up about a hot-button issue for a particular election. For example, I normally have zero interest in city politics, much to my dad’s chagrin. But when the city of Irving held an election on alcohol sales, I suddenly cared enough to vote in a city election.

In this year’s elections, I imagine some people have a top priority issue that will decide their vote. Jobs and the economy? The national debt? The military? The environment? Immigration?

For me, I think the deciding factor will be foreign wars, just like in the previous two elections. I plan to vote for whoever is less of a warmonger. I am weary of war. I am weary of seeing our brave men and women in uniform sent to the other side of the world to solve problems that cannot be solved. While some wars might be just (such as World War II), the ones we fight now in the Middle East waste lives, money, energy, and time and only make our enemies resent us more. The only upside I see is the jobs they provide to the military-industrial complex back home. I would much rather see many of those great minds redirected toward productive fields like medicine, space, infrastructure development, and more that will make life better for the people of our nation.

What about you? What single issue is most important to you right now? I added a new poll in the sidebar. Please vote. If you’d like, tell us about your choice in the comments.

Hello, Atlanta!

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Today Southwest starts service to Atlanta, the busiest airport in the world. Until now, it’s been a huge hole in our network, particularly for business travelers. But starting today, we’re offering nonstop service between Atlanta and Austin, Baltimore, Chicago Midway, Denver, and Houston Hobby, plus same-plane or connecting service to many of our other airports. For now, we will coexist with our subsidiary AirTran, which offers around 200 daily departures to dozens of cities from Atlanta, compared to 15 daily departures for Southwest. Next month, we will add Atlanta service to/from Las Vegas and Phoenix. In June, we’re adding Los Angeles. Over the next couple of years, we will gradually convert all AirTran aircraft and Employees into Southwest aircraft and Employees, so the percentage of SWA-branded flights at Atlanta will grow over time. Here’s a handy fact sheet about the merger.

My Dallas-Fort Worth readers have a same-plane option for four different flights each day between Dallas Love and Atlanta, two each through Austin and Houston. Next month I need to log some time in the cockpit jumpseat to stay current for work, so I plan to head to Atlanta and back with a dinner stop there to check out the airport. I’ve never been to Atlanta and look forward to seeing the king of airport traffic. Someday I want to actually visit the city with Jenny and the boys to see the famous Georgia Aquarium, the Coke museum, and the other highlights of the city. Until then, I’ll just enjoy my layover and maybe meet some of my new AirTran coworkers.

Note: Although I work for Southwest, all thoughts on this website are solely my own and do no necessarily represent those of Southwest Airlines, its Board of Directors and Leaders, or its shareholders.

Men in Tights

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Spandex is a privilege, not a right. – Life Time Fitness poster

I’m sexy and I know it. – LMFAO

We’re men, we’re men in tights /
We roam around the forest looking for fights – Mel Brooks, Robin Hood: Men in Tights

This week I bought my first pair of compression pants. I’m calling them “compression pants” because their more traditional name, spandex tights, just doesn’t sound like something a grown man is supposed to wear.

Why am I buying such a weird garment? For a perfectly masculine reason: to boost my athletic performance. Since I’m running and riding quite a bit this winter, I initially bought some dri-fit athletic pants that fit pretty loosely. They work well for running, but they tend to get caught in the chain when I ride. That’s a bit of a problem. So I tried tucking the ends into my socks. It works OK, but…yeah. To avoid looking like a dork, I needed some cold-weather tight tights that can’t get caught in the chain.

Shut up. I can hear you.

So I tried on some compression pants at Target. (hint: they’re $23 at Target vs. $80-100 at a speciality shop) Black ones. And they were definitely tight, so tight that I had to work to get into them like a middle-aged guy trying to squeeze into his wedding tux. They felt like super thick panty hose. (Um…don’t ask.) So I huffed and I puffed, and I tugged and I tugged, and finally they were on. I felt very official, almost like a real athlete.

They were surprisingly comfortable. Is that bad?

I was hoping they would make my legs look ripped. I work hard on my legs, and to be honest, I’m a bit vain about them. However, the compression aspect of compression pants actually compresses things, including my leg muscles, which now looked like skinny black chicken legs. I run 15-20 miles a week for this? Hmm. Well, at least they felt good. Plus Runner’s World says they also help one’s muscles recover more quickly during and after a long workout by squeezing out lactic acid, blah blah.

My other concern was…um…modesty. My regular readers might be surprised to hear me speak of modesty, but I think it’s safe to assume that the general population doesn’t really want to know the intimate details of my manly areas. (you’re welcome!) But guess what? Compression pants can compress other body parts besides muscles. BLAM!

Hmm. Maybe that’s not something to get too excited about.

Anyway, I hope to try them out during my long run tomorrow. The forecast high is 47 degrees. I need to log 10 miles. 10 very cold, very compressed miles. I wonder if guys in spandex are more or less likely to get a “Run, Forrest, run!” from passing cars. Will advise.

The Naked Eye

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Over the last year, I’ve gotten pink eye two or three times in my right eye. My most recent infection is still lingering, albeit mildly. I think I reinfected my eye by not washing out my contact case. (not one of my brighter moments, but I thought the contact solution would sanitize it)

Pink eye is annoying for anyone, but it’s extra annoying for me. While my left eye is perfect, my right eye (the sick one) is badly nearsighted, so I wear one contact. When you have pink eye, they recommend not wearing contacts. I suppose the microorganisms could linger on the lens and keep the infection alive or something. Normal contact wearers simply switch to glasses when they have pink eye. However, when I first got my contact, my eye doctor said glasses weren’t a good idea because they would screw up my depth perception. So I have no glasses and no contact until the infection is gone. I suppose I’ll declare the end of my pink eye sometime later this week.

Until then, I’m running around with one good eye and one really blurry, naked one. My brain gets a bit confused trying to reconcile the two images, but I actually works fairly well. My left eye is dominant anyway, so I guess my brain just tunes out the blurry image. It’s a bit odd when I can only see an object with my bad eye, such as in a mirror or around a corner. For a good time, many of you can simulate this by running around with one contact or by looking through only one lens of your glasses. Although I haven’t had many problems with my contact, it does feel dry or get lost in my eye on occasion.

My recurrent pink eye got me thinking, though. Apparently wearing contacts boosts your risk for pink eye, as does having small children. I’d prefer to keep my children, but I don’t have to use the contacts, certainly not every day. And I don’t have to be half-blind if I get pink eye again. I have three options:

  1. Get a monocle. Would I look good in a monocle? I think I’d look mysterious. And wise. And a lot older. Maybe I’d grown a beard and dye it gray. “The most important men in town would come to fawn on me. They would ask me to advise them like Solomon the wise. ‘If you please, Reb Tevye… Pardon me, Reb Tevye…’”
  2. Get glasses. My original doctor said no glasses. My current doctor never said that. Perhaps he might have a different opinion. If not, I’m sure there’s some optometrist somewhere who would hook me up.
  3. Get LASIK. Jenny had LASIK over a decade ago and was very pleased. So have millions of other people. It’s expensive, but I would only need one eye instead of two. Even if the surgery went badly, I’d still have my good eye as a backup. Part of me wonders whether it’s a frivolous expense. It’s certainly not necessary, but it would save me from having to buy contacts for the rest of my life.

Have any of you tried LASIK? If so, do you have any thoughts or advice to share?

Capitol Punishment

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For at least eighty years, the most consistent urge in Washington has been to accumulate power and sanctimoniously proclaim you are doing so for the good of the nation. Sometimes it’s true. More often it’s not. But regardless of whether one is using power for good or ill, the potential for corruption is always present, as I painfully learned. – Jack Abramoff

After a wildly successful career as one of the most powerful lobbyists in Washington, Jack Abramoff spent 3 ½ years in federal prison on charges of fraud and corruption. In 2010 he emerged from prison deeply humbled and penitent, was reunited with his family, and wrote a book about his experience called Capitol Punishment.

Prior to reading Abramoff’s book, I knew little about lobbyists beyond their generally negative connotation. In one of my favorite movies, The American President, a widowed Democratic President (Michael Douglas) hooks up with a liberal lobbyist (Annette Bening) during an election year, which gives his conservative opponent all the mud he could hope to throw during the campaign. Somehow I got the idea that lobbyists were generally liberal, so I was surprised to discover that plenty of lobbyists are conservative as well. One of them was Jack Abramoff, former national president of the College Republicans and fan of Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and the Tea Party.

Strange as it might sound for a convicted felon, Abramoff is an observant Jew and holds to a strict set of values. In prison, he was offended by many inmates’ porn collections. At one private White House dinner, he quietly refused to eat because the meal wasn’t kosher. He made millions of dollars and donated a huge portion of his income to various charities and individuals in need. However, over the course of his career, he gradually allowed himself to get sucked into the corruption around him, rationalizing questionable or illegal activities as being necessary to win and justified because they helped him donate more money to his charitable causes. It brought to mind the old cliché about boiling frogs. To boil a frog, you don’t throw him into boiling water. You put him in cold water and gradually turn up the heat.

For me, the most fascinating part of the book was its window into the lobbying business. Although the potential for corruption is overwhelming, the concept is simple and logical. Organizations hire lobbyists to influence legislators. As Abramoff lays out in Capitol Punishment, let’s say your organization (company, union, church, club) is threatened by a bill that’s floating around in Congress. If passed, this bill would destroy your organization. As the leader of the group, here are your choices:

  1. Cross your fingers, pray, and hope for the best.
  2. Resign yourself to defeat and shut down.
  3. Set up your own grassroots and/or online campaign against the bill via petitions, Facebook/Twitter, blogging, email, and other means.
  4. Move to Washington and “rush about Capitol Hill full time telling anyone who will listen that this bill is a bad idea”.
  5. Hire a lobbyist who knows how Congress works and has the connections you need to stop the bill.

Corruption potential aside, hiring a lobbyist is not that different from hiring a realtor to help you sell your house, a lawyer to represent you in a lawsuit, or an accountant to represent you in an IRS audit. You’re hiring an expert in a field to do something you can’t do yourself. If you need something done in Washington and have deep pockets, lobbying might be the most effective way to achieve your goal.

Unfortunately, despite all the laws that Congress passes to “fight” corruption and limit the influence of lobbyists, legislation is still a dirty, dirty business. Favors get traded for favors, free meals/trips/tickets get traded for votes, Congressional staffers get jobs with lobbying firms and vice versa, and weird riders get attached to unrelated bills because the right person was on the right committee at the right time and played golf with the right lobbyist who knew just the right thing to say to get Senator Mucketymuck onboard. Just like with term limits or campaign finance reform, how can we expect the members of Congress to pass bills that limit their own power, income, benefits, and influence? And with so many paying clients, why should the lobbyists turn down millions in fees simply because their business has a bad reputation? And why should the clients stop doing what it takes to legally fight for their own interests?

Abramoff did a pretty good job with the book itself. He tells a clear, compelling story full of insight, irony, and detail. He does admit several times that many of his actions were wrong, and I believe he’s sincere. As a husband and father, I did feel for the guy as he described spending his last few months with his wife and five children before he left for prison, knowing he would miss most of the next few years of their lives. As some reviewers have noted, the book does have a self-congratulatory tone in some places and a condescending one in others, particularly when he describes his time in prison with other prisoners who clearly “had different work ethics”. But overall I greatly enjoyed the book and learned something from it.

If you’re looking for a book to restore your faith in the integrity of the government, this isn’t the one. But if you want to learn more about how legislation and lobbying really work in Washington and some interesting ideas for reform, or a cautionary tale for how money and power and ambition can corrupt a moral person, Capitol Punishment is worth your time.

13.1

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I know most of you are not runners, but some of you might be curious about my whole half marathon thing. The Cowtown half marathon is February 26, four weeks from yesterday.

The Race

Here are some facts:

  • A half marathon is 13.1 miles, roughly the straight-line distance between DFW International Airport and Love Field.
  • The current world record is 58:23, an astounding 4:27/mile or 13.48 mph. I don’t average much faster than that on my bike. That pace is more than 2 minutes/mile faster than my best time for a single mile. The Cowtown course record is 1:10:24.
  • Last year nearly 6000 runners finished the Cowtown half marathon. The crowd is so big that if you’re in the back of the pack when the starting horn sounds, it might take a couple of minutes before you even reach the starting line. That’s why most races use chip timing, which places an electronic sensor mat across the start and finish lines to scan a chip that’s attached to your shoe.
  • An aid station is available every 1.5 miles along the course with water, electrolytes, port-a-potties, and medical personnel in case anyone gets in trouble.
  • The route starts at Will Rogers Memorial Center and takes us near the Stockyards, up the big hill on Main Street, and through downtown Fort Worth.

I’ve done Cowtown twice at the 10K distance, and it’s a great race with good support and a fun atmosphere.

Training

I’ve been training for this race for months now using a customized plan I created on RunnersWorld.com. My training consists of three runs per week:

  • One shorter run (currently 4 miles)
  • One medium-length run (currently 5 miles)
  • One long run at a gentle pace with some walking (10 miles this week)
  • One or two bike rides to strengthen my legs (10-20 miles per week)

On most weeks, my total weekly mileage increases by one. Once a month, I get a “rest week” that cuts my total mileage by about 20 percent. By strictly limiting the increase in workload, I’m supposedly reducing my risk of injury. The longest long run I’ll do before the race will be 11 miles.

So how is it going? Good news and bad news. The bad news is that my right knee isn’t cooperating very well despite all my efforts to strengthen my legs and to avoid increasing my mileage too quickly. I hope that the cause relates to the good news: my body is growing significantly stronger and fitter. My legs have never been stronger. In fact, I might have strengthened them disproportionately and allowed my hip muscles to become relatively weak, a possible cause of my knee pain. So I’ve brought out some of my old hip exercises to see if they help.

But otherwise I feel great. I’ve set personal records (PRs) in a few distances over the last few months as my running improves. I’ve lost fat and gained muscle. My heart and lungs are doing very well and becoming more efficient. My resting heart rate is under 60 now. My lungs don’t freak out when I run in cold air like they did in my younger years. If you’d told me at age 8, when my asthma forced me to sit out some days during PE, that I would be training for a half marathon 25 years later, I probably wouldn’t have believed you. But I am. With the possible exception of my time on the MacArthur tennis team, I’m probably in the best shape of my life at 33 years old.

I feel good – partly because I’m healthy and happy and have energy, partly because I’m using the body God gave me to do something special, something most people never choose to do. It’s not because I’m a great runner. It’s not because my endurance or discipline is unusually high. I simply chose a goal and started doing what it takes to reach it. You can do the same thing in whatever you are pursuing – pick a worthy goal and go after it. There is great joy in achieving something you didn’t think you could achieve. On February 26, I hope to experience that joy more fully.

This race is a big deal to me. It might be my only half marathon ever. It all depends on how my knee holds up. I might need to walk more than I would like so that my knee can rest. I’ll run as much as I can. If I can finish in two hours, I’ll be really happy. But even if I don’t, whether I run, walk, crawl, or ride in a gurney, I will cross that finish line.