Quote of the Day

Every closed eye is not sleeping

and every open eye is not seeing.

(via The Story Boys)

William Henry "Bill" Cosby, Jr.

Quote of the Day

Lying makes a problem part of the future;

truth makes a problem part of the past.

(via NY Times)

Richard Andrew "Rick" Pitino

Quote of the Day

Humiliation and indifference, these are conditions

every one of us finds unbearable – this is why the

Coyote when falling is more concerned with the

audience's opinion of him than he is with the

inevitable result of too much gravity. 

(via act)

Charles Martin "Chuck" Jones

Quote of the Day

Things that people learn purely out of curiosity

can have a revolutionary effect on human affairs.

(via AIP)

Frederick Seitz

Quote of the Day

The first time I see a jogger

smiling, I'll consider it.

(via tumblr)

Joan Alexandra Rosenberg,

a.k.a. Joan Rivers

Abbott Wins World Junior OW 5k

Nitro's Taylor Abbott has won the FINA World Junior Open Water 5k in Hungary.

Results (and splits) here.

Quote of the Day

When a constraint exists advantage

can usually be taken of it.

(via IASL)

William Ross Ashby

Quote of the Day

Questioning the status quo can result in
banishment, imprisonment, ridicule, or
being burned at the stake, depending
on your era, your locale, and the
sacred cows you wish to butcher.

(via The Exponent)

Eugene Howard "Gene" Spafford

Quote of the Day

Despite all the promises you hear from politicians,

big government does not really help the little guy.

Big government fosters big business, big unions,

and big costs to the taxpayers.  Big government

and its big partners rob individuals and our

nation of freedom, opportunity, and prosperity.

(via Business Week)

James Warren "Jim" DeMint

Quote of the Day

A weak enemy in the fortress is more

fearsome than the strongest outside.

(via Wikipedia)

Johann Jakob Wilhelm Heinse

Where have all the relays gone?

Thumbed through the 2014 NISCA All-America edition.

Alarmed to see only three (3) relays from Texas high schools made the top 40.

No, that's not three out of forty, fans.

That's three out of 240!

Texas h.s. relays in top forty:

Girls' 200 medley relay - 0
Girls' 200 free relay - 0
Girls' 400 free relay - 0
Boys' 200 medley relay - 0
Boys' 200 free relay - 0
Boys' 400 free relay - 3 - Klein, Brandeis, & Carroll

Go through all the 2013-14 All-America lists here.

Looking for a silver lining?  Texas schools had the most Academic All-Americans.  Maybe call it a stainless steel lining...

Quote of the Day

You never know what worse luck

your bad luck saved you from.

(via The Quarterly Conversation)

Cormac McCarthy

Quote of the Day

We have not journeyed all this way across

the centuries, across the oceans, across

the mountains, across the prairies,

because we are made of sugar candy.

(via IWM Prints)

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill

Quote of the Day

Innovation is everything. When you're

on the forefront, you can see what the

next innovation needs to be. When

you're behind, you have to spend

your energy catching up.

(via KPBS)

Robert Norton Noyce

Still Popular After All These Years

As we head into a new school year, let's revisit some of the Texas Swimming blog's most-read posts of all time - the excuses posts!

The true beauty of coaching high school is that every year brings something new.  Athlete and parent creativity in dreaming up incredible excuses knows no bounds...oh and yes, truth can be stranger than fiction!

Links back to original "The Old Coach" no longer work, but the highlights were posted here:

Excuses for Missing Practices

More Excuses

Still More Excuses

Even More Excuses

Quote of the Day

Liberty is not a thing for the great masses of

men. It is the exclusive possession of a small

and disreputable minority, like knowledge,

courage and honor. It takes a special sort of

man to understand and enjoy liberty - and he

is usually an outlaw in democratic societies.

(via The Smart Set)

Henry Louis "H.L." Mencken

That Danged Green Tunnel's Callin'

SUNY Fredonia assistant Rob Sweeny completed his thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail last week.  More here.

Sweeny said his worst moment, to that point, was the snowstorm they encountered while hiking up Big Bald Montain, a peak of 5,516 feet near Irwin, Tenn. He said he constantly had to filter his water and had seen a few rattlers but more bears along the Trail. He said he constantly has to check for tics, especially in his beard.

He said the best moment then was "watching spring happen" as he traveled north, including the gradual emergence of a green tunnel of foliage through which they hiked.

Thanks for the head's up, Big Weights!

Quote of the Day

When I have an idea, I turn down the flame,

as if it were a little alcohol stove, as low as it

will go.  Then it explodes and that is my idea.

(via Escritores Sucios)

Ernest Miller Hemingway

Quote of the Day

When the gardeners are praying for rain,

the picnickers are praying for sunshine.

So what is the poor Lord to do?

(via People)

William A. Feather

Trip, Music, Fantasy Foosball, & Pan Pacs

So, it's been a great couple of weeks without the Texas swim blog...y'all had to find some other way to waste yer time, right?

Like last year, we did plenty of touristy things on our way to and from Irvine.

In Arizona, we visited the  Painted Rock Petroglyph Site near the Gila River:

It was tough to tell which images were over a thousand years old and which may have been more recent additions.  Did the Hohokam actually know who lived in a pineapple under the sea?

Speaking of the sea, we also visited the Salton Sea.  Sad to say, ya just can't un-see what ya done seen at the Salton Sea.  What a disaster!

After the meet, we headed for Mammoth Lakes and Yosemite for a few days of hikin' and sight-seein'.  It was pretty smoky one morning, but later in the day so we got a good view of Half Dome from Glacier Point:

On the way out of California, the drive out to Bristlecone Pine Forest was like being on a roller coaster.  Saw some ancient trees out there.  Thought about watering this one, but there were too many folks around:

We didn't spend a whole lot of time in Nevada, but did manage to stop in at Caesars Palace and the Gold & Silver Pawn Shop on our way through Las Vegas.

On the way back through Arizona, we visited Meteor Crater and Petrified Forest.

Here's an old favorite:


Fantasy Foosball time already?  Yup!

Past winners:

2005 - Hill (dirtybuttcrackheads)

2006 - Hill (dirtybuttcrackheads)

2007 - Montoya (The Slum Lords)

2008 - Button, Jr. (YouAllSuck-JustQuit)

2009 - Button, Jr. (YouAllSuck-JustQuit)

2010 - Tonya S. (sugar hiccups)

2011 - Button, Sr. (Mansfield Maulers)

2012 - Katie (Smack&Cheese)

2013 - Katie (Smack&Cheese)

Our league turns ten (10) this fall.  If you'd like to join (and try to ruin Katie's attempt at a three-peat), there are only four (4) slots remaining, so hustle!  Sign up through your Yahoo! account:

League Name/Link: Texas Swimming

Password: reformtitleix

Live Draft: Monday, September 1, 6:30 p.m. (Central)

Be there, or be regular quadrilateral!

Follerin' that big meet down under?  Real time results link:

2014 Pan Pacific Champs

200 fly champ Camille Adams:



Tired of losing money in the stock market?  Now you can lose it betting on the Pan Pacs:

Women

Men

Quote of the Day

Time is the coin of life.  Only you

can determine how it will be spent.

(via Poets)

Carl August Sandburg

Quote of the Day

With every deed you are sowing a seed,

though the harvest you may not see.

(via Women Poets)

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Quote of the Day

Piracy doesn't kill music, boy bands do.

(via Rotten Tomatoes)

Ricky Dene Gervais

Quote of the Day

Life is not always a matter of holding good cards,

but sometimes, playing a poor hand well.

(via tv tropes)

John Griffith "Jack" London

Quote of the Day

Democrats want the votes and Republicans want

cheap labor.  They didn't want to do anything with

it, now they're going to wait until the last minute?

(via Detroit Free Press)

Kerry Bentivolio

Quote of the Day

Happiness is a good flow of life.

(via Wikipedia)

Zeno of Citium

Quote of the Day

In every walk with nature one

receives far more than he seeks.

(via tree hugger)

John Muir

Quote of the Day

An aphorism can contain only as much

wisdom as overstatement will permit.

(via Wine-Oh of the Year)

Clifton Paul "Kip" Fadiman

Quote of the Day

Hydrogen is a light, odorless gas, which,

given enough time, turns into people.

(via American Astronomical Society)

Edward Robert "Ted" Harrison

Quote of the Day

One of the real tests of journalistic integrity

is being fair to someone who might best

be described by a four-letter word.

(via St. Cloud State)

Gerald Michael "Geraldo" Rivera

Quote of the Day

We should be wary of politicians who profess

to follow history while only noticing those

signposts of history that point in the direction

which they themselves already favour.

(via China Daily)

Douglas Richard Hurd

Quote of the Day

It's better to make your own mistakes

than to copy someone else's.

(via NY Sun)

Vladimir Samoylovich Horowitz

Great Title IX Video

This was uploaded to YouTube in 2010 and embedded on TexasSwimming.org in 2011.

Very disappointed to see it's gotten fewer than three thousand views:

Quote of the Day

A man's natural rights are his own, against the

whole world;  and any infringement of them is

equally a crime, whether committed by one

man, or by millions;  whether committed by

one man, calling himself a robber, or by

millions, calling themselves the government.

(via Lysander Spooner)

Lysander Spooner

Senior Circuit Pics

Texas Senior Circuit pics from Andy Ringgold.

Quote of the Day

If you can count your money, you

don't have a billion dollars.

(via Afflictor)

Jean Paul Getty

Quote of the Day

The right to be let alone is indeed

the beginning of all freedom.

(via The Atlantic)

William Orville Douglas

Finals Parade Music

Problem:

As top seed in men's fitty free, you need to decide on parade music.

Solution:

Quote of the Day

I try not to let them catch me act.

(via Stripes)

James Scott Bumgarner, a.k.a. James Garner

Quote of the Day

He who does not bellow the truth when

he knows the truth makes himself the

accomplice of liars and forgers.

(via Wikipedia)

Charles Pierre Péguy

Quote of the Day

When doing a job - any job - one must

feel that he owns it, and act as though

he will remain in that job forever.

(via flickr)

Hyman George Rickover

Miss Elaine E. Yuss

What's new at The Woodlands?

1. Shana Trabona was featured on USAS's Coaches You Should Know
2. TWST teams up with masters swimmers to bid on the 2016 Trials pool
3. LC Sectional meet at CISD Natatorium begins Tuesday

Lifeguard Issues?

No, not talking about the dozers:

(via Staten Island Live)

or the Bathroom Break/Code Yeller combos:



There are lifeguard shortages around Texas.  The City of Austin is short-handed.  The City of Bay City only has a handful of guards, so public swim hours have been slashed.  The City of Victoria closed their pool for the summer.

The city began recruiting for lifeguards in February and was active at the schools, going so far as to offer pay incentives for those who stayed through the end of season. In a typical season, the city hires 12 lifeguards.

"For years, we've had problems getting people to come to the pool to work," the city manager said.

Here's an anonymous comment posted on No DFW in Top Fitty the other day:

How about training some of the lazy public employees as lifeguards as a condition of their parks and recreation department employment? Never ceases to amaze me how many short sighted bureaucrats will feather their own nest but not forsee a lifeguard crunch. Raspberries to the post summer swim team kid lifeguards ( who don't need the money or the headaches ) who opt to quit and go on that expensive European vacation with mommy and daddy.

How about paying a living wage for the job and getting someone who will commit unstead of closing the pool during the dog days of summer!

Love the idear of training parks & rec employees, then making them work longer hours for crappy pay.  Kind of like school districts requiring coaches to get certified to drive the bus for practices/meets, then paying them dirt for it.

Okay, back to the lifeguard shortage.  Money is the problem here.  It costs around $200 - and takes about 25 hours - to become an American Red Cross certified lifeguard.  Certification is good for two years.  Renewal is around $100.

If a guard can expect to earn $8 per hour and work part-time for, say 25 hours weekly, he/she won't net $4 per hour for his/her first month of lifeguarding.  How can that be?  Figure in the course, of course!

If this guard grosses $600 in three weeks, don't forget to subtract the $200 - and add the 25 hours - for the lifeguarding class!  For a hundred hours of class/work, they now have $400 to show for it - before Uncle Sam takes his share.

In the past, WSI's were able to certify lifeguards.  Many of us taught the class without compensation.  The kids needed only to purchase the ARC book.  Cards were good for three years.

Also, longer school years* mean shorter summers.  These guards have a couple weeks less to earn some dough each summer.

Another difference?  American Red Cross CEO Gail McGovern earns over a half million dollars annually.  Getting the picture?

Consider Johnny Subway.  He gets paid while training, eats fresh for free on a paid break, finds an occasional nickle in the tip jar, and works inside with air conditioning.  If BHO & Co. have their way, Johnny S. will be toasting your Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki for fifteen bucks an hour**.

(via The Federalist)

Lifeguarding - yet another job we "can't get Americans to do"?

Here are a couple of YMCA jobs:

The J.E.R. Chilton at Rockwall YMCA

Twin Lakes Family YMCA

(via djackson2014's blog)

While daughter Smacker enjoys success with the Longhorn swim program, Lousy-Anna State University foosball coach Les Miles spouts off about how crappy, beach-less Austin is:

LSU coach Les Miles found himself treading water about the lack of an ocean in Austin, Texas.

“I took a vacation. I went to Austin,” Miles said in his opening remarks about a trip to the University of Texas to visit his daughter Kathyrn “Smacker” Miles, who is on the Texas swim team. “It was miserable. I hated it. I mean, it was not a beach. It was not sand.”

Asked a follow-up question by Kirk Bohls of the Austin American-Statesman, Miles suddenly tried to crawfish.

“I loved it,” he said. “My daughter’s doing wonderfully there. I enjoy the experience she’s having, okay? But it was not a beach. There was no hotel that I walked out and jumped into the surf. We rented bikes. It just happened to rain like hell. There was a bunch of hills down there.”

When Miles exited, he passed a writer and said, “I’m going to catch hell from Texas.”

Miles may need to be more careful about Louisiana’s western neighbor.

He has always recruited the state of Texas. There are 13 players from Texas currently on LSU’s roster.

Just a little harmless fun there, right?

Git yer Ed "U.K." Shun via Weird Al:




*Brought to you by the folks that think:

"If what we're doing now isn't working worth

a hoot, more of it will surely be better!"

**Ten dollar foot-longs, anyone?

Quote of the Day

I never expect to lose.  Even when I'm the

underdog, I still prepare a victory speech.

(via Instruction Book)

H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Quote of the Day

A company will get nowhere if all of the

thinking is left to the management.

(via Addicted2Success)

Akio Morita

Quote of the Day

The manager accepts the status

quo;  the leader challenges it.

(via Korn Ferry Institute)

Warren Gamaliel Bennis

Quote of the Day

I'm not interested in photo ops.

(via Wikipedia)

Barack Hussein Obama II

Quote of the Day

If you're not in the parade, you

watch the parade.  That's life.

(via gratuitous world)

Michael Keller "Mike" Ditka, Jr.

Quote of the Day

They called me mad, and I called them mad,

and damn them, they outvoted me.

(via Wikipedia)

Nathaniel Lee