Intro - New Guy from NY

Pardon if this rambles on.  I’ll be a lurker going forward unless I actually get into this triathlon thing.

• First tri.  I’m attempting my first tri on July 24 in Kingston, NY (0.3m/18m/3.5m).  My goal is to finish before they close the course, nothing more.  I started building for the distances in April from a simple program I found elsewhere on the web.  Didn’t get to swimming until three weeks ago when I opened my pool.  Like many of the newbies who posted here, my swim is very weak and the biggest concern.
• Bio – I’m Bill, a 36 year old desk jockey with a full house (wife, 3 kiddies, dog) in the burbs who spends way too much time commuting into NY city.  Many moons ago, I ran for fun, not speed (~40 miles/week at the peak).  I did a marathon on a whim back in 99 and finished (stumbling across the line in terrible pain at 4+ hours).  Like everyone else, I’m short on time, so I have to fit this stuff in where I can.
• Motivation – last winter 2 things happened, I think they are related 1) I reached my maximum weight.  180lbs doesn’t sound like too much but I’m a pretty small-framed guy by nature and was out-of-shape, huffing and puffing everywhere I went. 2) I herniated a disk causing debilitating pain in my arse and one leg.  It made me a total grump, couldn’t sit, stand, or do much of anything else for a time.  Another motivation for getting out there is my dog.  He;s getting too fat for his own good and we want to keep him around for some more years without hip pain.  So why not a triathlon?  The reason I stopped running when I was younger was that it bored the heck out of me, out and back, the same scenery, etc.   Also, I want to slim down my dog (2-3 jogs/week) not kill him with long runs.  I avoid gyms like cold viruses.  I want to be able to jump out of bed and do what I need to do if I have a few minutes to spare, not drive to a gym and spend a bunch of dough.  I’ve tried gyms before and found that for me, the effective cost per visit was staggering and embarrassing.  Another reason tri’s seemed right for me is I THOUGHT I had everything I needed to do it.  I was given a road bike 15 years ago that I never rode and I spend a chunk of my summer maintaining a pool that I never used, except to splash around with the kids on the occasional Sunday afternoon.  Turns out, I talked myself into $1,000 in other expenses  to get this done, so I hope I end up doing this more than once to avoid the sideways glance I’ve got coming to me from my very patient wife.  If I don’t get the bug I’ll need to find another activity since the good news is that between loosely following weight watchers and training for this tri, I dropped 20lbs and I feel better than I have in years and i dont want to backslide.
• Swimming -  I don’t really enjoy swimming right now but am loving the bike and hope to keep up a couple of rides/week even if I never do another race.  I’m hoping I’ll like swimming more if I get better and it feels like more of a natural activity.  Right now it is a weird balance between trying to move forward and trying not to sink.

Thanks for sharing all your experiences and knowledge on this website.  it's already been very helpful.