This is the thought I really woke up to this morning…
Sometime, somewhere, someone was the very first person to ever say “pull my finger” and then farted.
In my younger days, I woke up to different thoughts. Sigh.
Earlier this week, I received an email telling me that I won the lottery. Not the money lottery, unfortunately, but the chance to buy tickets for the 2028 Summer Olympics.
Even better, my slot was days before my wife’s. Winning twice!
My slot opened today at noon. This was the first day and first time slot for Olympic ticket sales after locals had their crack at it. I went in cautiously optimistic. But some light doom-scrolling beforehand suggested a lot of events were already sold out, and the remaining ones came with ticket prices that required a small home equity loan plus service fees.
Still, hope springs eternal.
Finally, noon rolled around. I was at work at lunch, and I told everyone to leave me alone. I fought through the queue and got to the ticket selection page.
Mother. F—-er.
All the good stuff was gone. Anything remotely interesting that was still available was north of $1,000 a ticket.
Gymnastics? Nothing.
Swimming? I’m not paying $1,000 per ticket.
Triathlon? Sold out.
It was killing me.
Eventually, I called it a day and decided I’d just wait for the 2034 Winter Olympics, when I’ll be local. My new master plan is to buy up every decent ticket I can and then resell them like all the proper Olympic villains who bought up LA28.
But after teaching another class period, I cooled off and decided to take one more look.
My wife was pretty disappointed we didn’t get tickets, so I went back into the system to see if there was anything left.
Turns out there was. Not the best events, but events I could live with.
First up: a soccer match before the Games technically start in Columbus, Ohio. It’s on a Monday, so we’ll spend the weekend visiting my mother-in-law and then go to the game. The tickets weren’t too bad, and lodging should be free… unless my mother-in-law decides to monetize the visit and Airbnb the guest room to us.
Then the real Olympic portion.
The following Friday, we fly out to Los Angeles for a small buffet of sports: badminton, judo, baseball, beach volleyball (mixed), women’s basketball, and track.
I’m actually pretty happy about the track session. It’s a medal day and includes the women’s 5K. Judo is also a medal session. The rest are prelims, but that’s fine. You still get to see world-class athletes doing world-class things.
Do I care about badminton? Not even a little.
But hey, table tennis was sold out.
Baseball should be a good day, though – two games, sunshine, and an excuse to see Dodger Stadium. Track is at the historic Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, which is also pretty cool. It’s also a medal session and includes the Women’s 5K.
The tricky day is beach volleyball from 9 to 12 and basketball from 12 to 2 (also two games). These venues are not exactly neighbors, so we’ll probably have to leave beach volleyball early to make basketball.
My bad.
Depending on what my wife manages to get when her ticket window opens next week, I might unload the basketball tickets on the secondary market.
Still, overall, it should be a great trip.
Truth be told, my wife is way more excited than I am. Personally, I’d rather skip LA and attend the 2032 Olympics abroad if I’m still alive. The 2032 Summer Olympics in Australia sound a lot more interesting.
Though, to be fair, I’ve already been to Australia too, but it’s more interesting to me than L.A.
In any event, I’ve never been to ANY Olympics, and it’ll be an experience. Plus, not to sound so simpy, but it’ll be a great week in the sun with my wife.
When I was in law school, I studied in the same area of the library most days. In the stacks next to my little corral, there was a set of books I liked to browse through: the Harvard Classics.
First published in 1909 and marketed as “Dr. Eliot’s Five Foot Shelf of Books,” the series contains classic works of literature, speeches, poems, plays, and historical documents.
Recently, as a birthday gift to myself, I bought a complete used set. Along with the 50 books, there’s also a reading guide. The idea is simple: about fifteen minutes of reading each day, with a different selection each day.
I’ve read some of these works online before, but my goal now is to actually follow the plan and work through the guide for a year. I only started in April when the set arrived.
The readings aren’t easy. A lot of them are written in older language and can be difficult for me to understand. I try to read slowly and understand as much as I can. When I’m not sure what something means – or when I want more context – I’ll use AI to summarize the piece and explain why it mattered. That helps a lot. I’ll finish a reading and then learn something like: it was the first play that really developed character, or a group of poems that made poetry accessible to ordinary people by using everyday language.
Some of the readings have been interesting, but that’s about it. Others have been more interesting than I expected.
Today’s reading was a series of poems by William Wordsworth. I’m not really a poetry guy. Like painting or opera, I usually feel like I just don’t get it. But that’s exactly why this is a valuable challenge.
I learned why Wordsworth was important as a poet, and I came away with a few takeaways. He saw the divine in nature and in the everyday activities of ordinary people. The Affliction of Margaret hit hard. Simon Lee, the Old Huntsman, made me think about getting older. The poems about daffodils, skylarks, and cuckoos connected with my own love of being outside—especially being in the mountains surrounded by trees, plants, and animals.
Learning why he mattered as a poet gave me an appreciation for poetry I didn’t really have before.
A friend recently asked if I had a bucket list for turning 60. Another friend is doing a “60 at 60” challenge with sixty goals for the year.
I don’t have anything that structured.
But I do want to keep exploring new things. I’m taking a painting class (I am terrible), still learning bass guitar and drums, training for another Ironman, learning ASL, going to a weekend fly-fishing camp, and now adding classic literature to the mix.
I guess my goal isn’t a bucket list.
I just want to keep learning, doing, and seeing new things.
Solid week. Amazingly, I feel great this afternoon. This was a full week—I made all my planned workouts. That felt good, but it also meant a big jump in training load, which is not the wisest thing. I’ll keep an eye on it.
This is where I technically “lose” time compared to the training plan. The plan calls for 2,500 yards in 60 minutes, and I usually knock it out in about 45. So it looks like I’m shorting the duration, but I’m not losing sleep over it.
The long ride was two hours yesterday in the cold and rain. Somewhere along the lakefront, I discovered a 13.1-mile race was going on that I didn’t know about.
Then, at literally the farthest point of the out-and-back, my chain dropped and wedged itself hard into the front cassette. It took some work (and a fair amount of grease) to get it loose and back on.
Still, it was a good ride. I don’t mind training in bad weather. I have no idea what race-day conditions will look like, so: train for the weather.
Yes, I’m absolutely counting that extra minute.
This was a huge jump in mileage—borderline How Not to Train-level jump—but it felt good while doing it. We’ll see how the body responds over the next few days.
So the numbers basically say:
I probably should have scaled things back a bit, but I felt good throughout the week.
The tricky part next week is that the training load actually increases again. That’s going to be a challenge. I need to find a way to build in a dedicated rest day, but scheduling swims around pool availability makes that tough.
Monday is supposed to be the rest day, but it’s also a great day to swim. Of course it is.
And just to make things more interesting, the two weeks after next are both build weeks.
Sheesh.
Still… 23 weeks until race day. Plenty of time to keep building—hopefully a little more smoothly than this week.