Getting what I want

So yesterday I decided I'm going to start being "difficult." Very, very difficult. Live up to my stubbon Zodiac sign and all that.

Here's the deal.

We are, as many of you know, building a house. Well, not really building right now. Right now it's a pile of dirt. With a newly paved road up to it. Thus, the clock is now ticking for permits and all that until the excavation begins. I figured this would be a good time to demand two rather simple things of my homebuilder, Ryland homes.

1. Dual tankless water heaters, gas-fired, on either side of the house. One would supply the kitchen and upstairs bathroom. The other would provide for the half-bath downstairs, master bath upstairs and the laundry upstairs.

2. Spray foam insulation. Preferably the bio-soy kind. There's a company here in Indy that does it.

Why I want these are very simple. First off, the cost of this house is pretty much at the maximum (and likely more) than what we can afford. So by enacting these energy-saving measures, our monthly operating costs will plummet. The tankless water heaters should save 20-30% and the spray foam should cut our heating and cooling bill in half.

Wrap your head around that for a second. If you're spending say, $200 a month, it'll jump down to $100. $1200 a year. Sure it costs more up front, but by putting it in the mortgage, you're still saving monthly. Then when I get the solar power going, I'll be all sorts of set. Which is another thing -- the more efficient the house, the smaller the solar package we'll need. And what about my neighborhood bylaws saying I can't install solar panels? Indiana law says that you can't put such a restriction in your covenants. So stick it, neighbor.

I talked to my salesguy today and expressed my deep desire for these things. My inability to live without them, if you will. He said that he had seen others ask for things like this and have it come to a dead end. That is unacceptable for me. There will be no dead ends. There will be two tankless water heaters in my basement and sprayfoam in my walls. I will talk to whoever I have to in corporate to get this thing moving along.

Now don't get me wrong -- there are issues other than the red-tape bit. For instance, the air conditioning unit that they will give us is based on their standard house with standard insulation. However, if you seal up the house really well, you need a smaller unit. But to figure out how small, you need to do some testing, which will cost money. And if you're thinking that a bigger AC is better, uh, it's not. It's actually a lot worse. Not only do you waste more money as it turns on and off constantly, but it will likely be incapable of quashing summertime humidity.

For the water heaters, they need larger pipes for the natural gas. This is going to be another simple hurdle.

The most annoying thing in all of this is that we've already put down what's basically a non-refundable 5%. So if I don't get what I want (highly unlikely since I have time, a computer and some writing skills... not to mention a telephone) then the only other recourse is a nice long nasty column in some local paper.

Maybe I can negotiate something with them, too. I understand that they are giving me a home warranty. And I understand that bringing someone else in to do work may have an affect on that. But here's the thing -- I'll waive the entire home warranty if I can get this. That's right. The whole damn thing. If the roof falls in? Whatever. Just as long as I'm surrounded by nice thick sprayfoam when it happens.

I'll keep y'all updated on how things develop. Salesguy said he'd make some calls today and let me know possibly by tomorrow where the dead end is. Then it'll be my turn to start annoying the crap out of people.

Running plan

So I've been thinking a lot about this 15K run that I have on Saturday morning. I'm probably not as ready for it as I should be, so I'll have to make do with a lot of pain and suffering on Sunday. When I did the 5-miler the other week, I didn't put too much thought into it other than wanting to stop after 3 miles and making sure I had a decent recovery meal. Those things more or less happened.

However, as this is much longer, I am going to try to eat a much larger meal about 2 hours before the race (starts at like, 8 a.m.) Something sensible, of course. And also make sure I get enough to drink at the rest stops. I'm still thinking whether I should make this a 5K 3x over or a 4.6-mile run twice. That is, should I stop twice or three times? I obviously don't want to, but I fear I may do more damage to myself if the body doesn't get at least a little breather.

Off the top of my head, I suppose I like the thirds option. I enjoy having something to look forward to. First third, second third, almost done! Smaller portions seem more easy psychologically. And I can tweak the listening playlist accordingly. Some Timberlake in there at about half an hour to get me through the first hump. I ran 11 minute miles over 5 miles, so it stands to reason that I should be able to at least keep up that pace. That was in the rain, which doesn't make a huge difference, but still. So, at 11 minutes, that would finish me in about one hour, 45 minutes. At 10:30 miles, I'd be done in one hour, 40 minutes (times rounded slightly). According to the Web site, they have clocks going at regular intervals whereas the five-miler didn't. I think this will be more helpful for me to gauge my speed and get a feel for whether I can pick things up after mile 8 or something.

Have I mentioned that I will be doing a marathon come the fall? Not sure where or when, but I'm determined to get one done. And at something much quicker than a leisurely 11-minute place. Something closer to 9 minute miles.

On a completely unrelated note, I have to give many thanks to Healey. Six years ago -- Six! -- he scored me a fantastic GoreTex jacket that I still use to this day. I mainly employ the outside shell -- which is entirely waterproof -- every time it rains. Hooded, it means that I no longer require an umbrella. It shows no signs of slowing down, and today's walk in from the car dry and pleasant. And yes, when I say every time it rains, I mean every time it's rained for the past six years.

The Jetta is going in for a 70K check up tomorrow morning. It's actually near 71K. Just commuting, I'm doing like, 2400 miles/month. Eight months left -- about 20,000 more miles. I really wouldn't be surprised if I hit 100K by year end.

The Easter

So Saturday.

Last Saturday I woke up, didn't take a shower, put on some gym shorts and a shirt not made of cotton, met up with some friends and did a 5-mile charity run. Slowly. In the rain.

We did a run in Broad Ripple for Joy's House. It started to rain about half an hour before the race, and the only upsetting thing for me was that I didn't have a hat. Because my hair gets just atrocious in the morning and when wet. Oh well. When everybody's wet and sweaty, I guess it doesn't matter.

A few things about this run.

It was kind of to see where I am in training for the Mini-Marathon (half Marathon) on 5/5 here in Indy. I'm sort of ok for that, I guess. And what I mean by that is that at the end of the five miles, I didn't feel like I had gotten my ass kicked by angry girl scouts or something.

Here are a few fun facts before I tell you how long it took.

I weigh nearly 235 lbs. No really, I do. I'm not entirely sure where it all is either (your stomach, dumbass) but hey, multiple scales are likely not conspiring against me. I am not a regular runner. I don't particularly like running. I got a new iPod Shuffle on the Friday before the run.

My finish time was somthing like 55 minutes. Not last! There were about 200 folks there. So yes, that would be like, 11-minute miles. Nothing spectacular, but again, I'm not a runner. And it was under an hour, so that's good, right?

This was also the longest I've ever run ...without "stopping." I say that because halfway through, I did take a few walking steps through a drink station. And it felt horrible. So I decided that running actually felt better and what the hey, might as well keep on keepin' on.

As the run started, pretty much everybody passed me, and I was wondering if I was all the way in the back. But I was not! I tried to make sure I settled into a slow methodical pace early on. I wanted to finish, and I wanted to run the whole thing, too. After the first mile, (ten minutes) everybody was at their pace and there wasn't much passing. I tried to keep my eye on a person or two in front of me and generally keep up with them. When I could see the finish line about 100 yards away, I sped up as much as I could just for the hell of it. It felt good.

This coming weekend, as part of the "training" series for the Mini, there's a 15K run. That's 10 miles. I'm shooting for under two hours.

Oh, and thank God the iPod showed up for the run. It performed brilliantly and staved off a good hour of boredom.

After that, we had breakfast in Broad Ripple. I went home, packed up some stuff, relaxed and then headed up to Chicago. It's a three-hour drive ... but the time change makes the way up only "two" hours. Ha ha.

I went to see a family friend (Nadeem) and he got tickets for Second City, which is a comedy improv show type thing. It's in a few cities and has great history to it -- many, many SNL people have gone through Second City in NYC, Chicago or wherever.

The show was like a really good SNL episode (and for those of you who know me, you know I watch -- and have watched -- a lot of SNL over the years.) The skits (which were actually part of a show) were about 90% good. Only one or two were so-so.

I'll try to find the name of the exact show, but it dealt with current political and national issues. My favorite skit was a father talking to his daughter about why she was punching people in the face at school. She said she had a list of enemies and had to perform a pre-emptive strike on them. Otherwise they would attack her first. Brilliant.

At the end of the show they did some actual improv stuff with suggestions and whatnot from the audience. That was fairly decent. I'd say they did well given some of the suggestions.