TNC #2 That Ironman

Two observations this week. First, it is scary to wake up at 5:30 on a chilly winter morning to swim in your apartment complex pool, particularly after a stormy night. When you approach the gate to the pool your frigid fingers can barely get the key into the lock. When the pool gate swings open under the yellow light of the pool lamps, it squeaks so loud you're sure you just made the world's most annoying morning alarm for thirteen different families in the vicinity. Then you have to walk over to the steps of the pool, the steaming pool mind you, because it's heated. You can't see into the depths, so you step into the water, which is heated to a toasty 89 degrees farenheit. Once your torso is submerged , all you see is steam, until you complete the process and begin to swim. With motion, the steam clears a path like a train plowing through town. You get into a fairly good swimming rhythm for five minutes, until you feel something grab your leg out of the dark depths of the four-foot pool. It's wraps around you like a jelly fish and you have the two seconds it takes your mind to tell your hand to reach down and remove the mystery thing before you let out a pansy, early-morning yell. During those two seconds your mind races and categorizes all the possible things that could be dwelling in the pool of an apartment complex located in urban Tucson. Luckily, it was only a palm frond. The California fan palms next to the pool shed easily in the wind. But at this point, your will to swim manfully is as strong as Mark McGwire not on steroids, so you weasel out of the rest of the workout and head up home to a nice and toasty apartment where your wife is sleeping smartly and soundly.

My second observation concerns wrist watches. I've noticed water-resistant watches list a depth at which supposedly it can safely work under water. Mine says 100m. That being observed, do they actually test that, and if so, is there a place in the world to perform such testing? Where does a company like Timex go to drop a watch 300 feet under the water to see if it can handle the stress? If Timex hired people for such work, I guess I couldn't apply considering I can't even handle the stress of a four-foot swimming pool :) But hey, if you knew what crazy things went on in our complex like Anna and I do, then you might think twice also before your next early-morning dip...