Manatee Monkey Mentors SHUT (Poptart or pet pic bribes considered) (Page 49)

Been thinking about this (yeah, work today has been really engaging).  She definitely shouldn't be Chief Pop Tart.  We all know that's you!!

Ahem....

First rule of Bike Club: No comparing.  Second rule of Bike Club: No comparing.

That LBS sounds most excellent!  Glad you found what you've been looking for.

Bring him beer (or whatever he likes)!  A good LBS is such a great asset to having fun on the bike - nurture the relationship!

Congrats on moving forward with the bike.  I hope you LOVE riding it!

Matt

Originally posted by laffinrock

Originally posted by jmkizer

Originally posted by mcmanusclan5

Originally posted by laffinrock

Originally posted by JJ-

Originally posted by blueyedbikergirl

Holy dayum.  

For those of you playing at home, I now have interview number SEVEN set up for Wednesday morning.  That's right, folks... Interview.Number.SEVEN. 

And they have some testing that they want me to do before then, so... that's fun.  

Holy crap, this is getting to be just a tad ridiculous - but I want Jonathan to know that I did mention him in my conversation with the attorney today when we were chatting about IMTX!  

If everything works out and you get there in time then Austin's Texas Longhorn 70.3 would be a great way to get settled into Texas It's not my favorite race but it's still an Ironman 70.3 and alot of fun. And it's in October so it's not hot. I think it only got up to 85 last year

Obviously "hot" is a relative term...

Beat me to it!  

Despite coming off of the first winter I can remember when the cold actually got to me (I can run in the double digit below zero zone for only SO many days in a row), I'm more than a little nervous about the 8 months of summer in Austin, as my thermostat is genetically very northern European (75 or so is my preferred upper limit!).  That said, one can adapt to anything.    

Austin is happening for us (should be tied up in the next day or so, but looks pretty certain), so I sure hope so!  Mon - I really hope you beat me there!  Is this next interview the last one?  I won't tell you how many it took me (I'll just say, "Not fewer than 7").    

FastFox (ponder no more), nice race!  x2 on getting a fit first.  I bought a used Cervelo P2C in that same range, but I dropped some coin on a couple fit sessions to figure which bikes (there were a couple that fit my simian body habitus - there's a reason, or two…, that my rugby nickname was Primate) to target on the used market.  Great approach, if you can make it work - I'm very happy with the outcome (hey, the bike - and wheels - were "new to me!").

As for throwing out bags of candy, that just doesn't register (even to a guy who is cleaning house with a cold hearted efficiency at the moment!).  

Matt

Yesterday is was 96 degrees here in Raleigh.  When Monica started to talk about moving to Austin I looked and teh *average* high for over a month higher than that.  I thought about that when I was running yesterday. 

But in Austin, isn't it a "dry" heat?  Dry heat is so much better.

Ahem… That (dry heat) is exactly what I use to char meat and bake cookies.

(mmmmmmmmmmmmm…. cookies……..)

I'm, quite literally, toast.    

Matt

Maybe it's time for another round of "What do you do for a living to fund your tri habit?"

I work for North Carolina State University doing computer support for Cooperative Extension.  The longer version of this is that we support 100+ Extension offices in every county of the state.  We used to have a Linux terminal server in every office and I did the sys admin for them.  Now that we can get good network speeds even for our most rural offices, we have them set up to VPN to Raleigh.  Oh, and the terminals area long gone, they are all on Mac minis, iMacs, etc.  I've been moved to doing more rolling out and supporting new-to-our-users products.  Blackboard Collaborate web conferencing, Google Hangouts, event management, email marketing (as paper newsletters have fallen away).  I've been with NCSU since 1997 and I've supported Water Quality, Poultry Science, the College of Ag and Life Sciences and now Cooperative Extension.  If you are not familiar with Cooperative Extension, think 4-H, master gardeners.  Our mission is to bring the research that is done by land grant universities to farmers, small business owners, youth, consumers, etc.

It did get a little quiet in here.

I work for Kettering Health Network in Dayton Ohio as a contract analyst in the legal department.  I manage all of our leases for our network of seven hospitals and other accompanying buildings.  I write leases and also physician contracts.  I also do fair market value analysis on all new physician contracts or amendments that the network does.  I'm also the building manager for the network's largest office building.

I'm going to be starting a new position in two and half weeks.  I'll be moving to a finance analyst position with the physician network we own.  I believe we have somewhere in the area of 250+ physicians we employ and ~80 physician practices.  I'll be helping to support the family practice and urgent care service lines.  I'll also be keeping track of physician productivity, and supporting the operations people as they manage the practices.

Congratulations!!!

I an an attorney for a law enforcement agency.  My job duties include representing the agency in forfeiture cases where we assume ownership of property used in the commission of a crime or that is the proceeds from a criminal enterprise, closing businesses or other properties used in criminal activity, and defending the agency and or its personnel against Federal and State claims made by people we've arrested who are now angry about it  I also handle reviews of internal affairs investigations, am responsible for teaching new deputies and keeping everyone updated on the law, give advise regarding investigations, and a myriad of other things.  I am also on-call 24-7 for 2 months at a time.  That last one is not a lot of fun     

I'm a paralegal at the University of Colorado Denver¦Anschutz Medical Campus, which is made up of 2 campuses, one in downtown Denver that has undergrad and grad programs in 8 schools and colleges, and the other in Aurora that is a health sciences campus with 5 professional schools (medicine, pharmacy, nursing, dentistry, and public health) and basic health science research.  Our office provides legal advice to from the Chancellor on down to administrative units within departments and schools/colleges.  The attorneys also provide advice on medical malpractice cases and to the practice management organization for our physicians.  I support all 6 attorneys and do a variety of stuff, from drafting/reviewing real estate agreements to gathering data for employment cases to preparing responses to FOIA-type open records requests.  I also do all the administrative stuff for the office, like filing (ugh!), entering travel reimbursement requests, ordering office supplies, etc.  I started working here in 2003, left in 2007 to get a master's degree in social work, then came back in 2012.  My heart is in social work and I'm hoping to eventually set up a part-time private practice.  My areas of interest are animal-assisted social work, couples and family counseling, adoption, trauma (especially childhood abuse/neglect), and pain psychology.  My boss is super-supportive and willing to let me adjust my workday to allow for a 1/2 day off to either volunteer or work on the counseling stuff; just haven't pursued that yet.  At the moment, I'm focusing on getting myself healthy before I try to help other people get healthy.  I started working as a paralegal in 1996; before that I repaired musical instruments (woodwinds) for 5 years.  And that, my friends, is what you do with a B.A. in philosophy!    

I'm a shrimp farmer.

Tom, not sure if you have any interaction with this aspect of the business, but DH works for HealthGrades, which rates hospital quality based on complication/death data reported to Medicare and Medicaid.  He works on crunching the numbers, then interprets it to the sales people so they have some clue what they're talking about when they meet with their clients.  HG also does consulting for hospitals and practice groups.  Not pushing his business, just wondering if there's a small-world connection...

Here's the race report for the 5K I did this last Sunday.  Contains a PR and a #1 AG!

I don't know.  It's not ringing any bells for me.  But we're large enough that we could be using their services and I just don't know about it.

and fashion Muslim swimsuit designer/entrepreneur

You're having an awesome season!!  Keep up the great work!

And serial bride.

::knock knock::

Remember me? Can I come in?

Once a Manatee...

Bio for the non-returning members please

I'm a paralegal for intellectual property law for both patent prosecution and patent litigation... and will be doing the same thing when I get to Austin in a couple of weeks!!!  

It means I help with writing initial claims, research prior art, review office actions from the US Patent & Trademark Office, etc., etc., etc. for things like Google Glass and their Loon project http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wPvd3EJ7mg which has been very cool to work on... and apparently I'll be doing some of the exact same work with the new firm.  WOOT!  

Come on in - we missed you!   

Of course!

NAME: Jen Drake

STORY: I've done triathlons since 2005. I've run one marathon, done a bunch of tris of sprint and olympic distance.  I had my daughter in 2011 and haven't really gotten back in to my stride since.  I had a stress fracture before my pregnancy and got another one last year.  I've also struggled with getting hypothyroidism, a meniscus tear, gallbladder surgery, wrist surgery, and now a stomach ulcer all since starting this crazy journey.

In real life, I'm a research scientist working on a portion of the human microbiome project. I work on RNA and DNA expression and am currently working on cytokine and cell-signaling as it relates to pregnancy.  

FAMILY STATUS: Married to A (for 10 years next month), mom to daughter E (2 1/2), 2 cats (Taji and Griffin)

CURRENT TRAINING: I've been doing a lot of Body Back so far this year.  It's an awesome program to help moms with strength, toning, and eating right.  I have seen a lot of changes in my body through that (more later!).  I'm also focusing a lot on cycling.  I just got a new bike trailer so I can take E with me for rides.  We went for our first one 2 weeks ago.  She loved it and fell asleep; I fell asleep once I got home from being so tired!

THIS YEAR'S RACES/EVENTS: I did the Run Like a Girl 4 mile race on June 1st with 3 other women from my Body Back group.  We had a great time!!  
* Bike Virginia on Saturday and Tuesday this week.  I can pick any distance, but am leaning towards 58 miles on Saturday and 65 on Tuesday.
* Scenic Shore 150 on July 19 - 20 in Wisconsin.  2 days, 150 miles, 1 bike
* Thinking about doing a 1/2 marathon this fall.  Really bummed that I did not sign up for the Bridge to Bridge 10k and am seriously considering a charity slot

BODY COMPOSITION: I am currently about 30 - 40 pounds overweight.  I've been working on slowly losing weight, but it's tricky for me.  I have also been working on losing inches and changing my body shape.  That is going much better!  In my previous session of Body Back, I lost a total of 6.5"!  I am wrapping up another session on 6/28, so I'm interested to see what changes.