It's All About Water... From the Skies and In the Pool

Happy Hour came early yesterday afternoon, due to our rather unusual (for this time of year) weather. Whereas I normally wait until early evening to go sit outside and enjoy a cigar and a brew… or two, or three (brews)… it was cool enough in mid-afternoon yesterday to hit it early. And so I did. Actually, I misstate the case by saying “cool enough,” as the weather was just dang near perfect. To wit:

And today is the same, temperature-wise:

But temperature isn’t everything. The skies have been threatening rain all day, and we’re supposed to get more thunderstorms… and more rain… again today. Which is a great good thing in the general scheme of things, but not all that great for us lazy-assed retirees who view weather through a rather different sort of prism than other people. But I’m loving the weather we’ve had the last few days.

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“There have been so many greats who have come before me, and what Mark did is still amazing,” he said. “It's a very hard thing to accomplish. I think it shows whatever you put your mind to, you really can accomplish.” Photo: Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

So… How about that Michael Phelps! The toast of the sports world pulled off a nearly impossible feat by taking his eight gold medals, and the magnitude of his accomplishment is nearly indescribable…although lotsa people will try. The NYT had a pretty good article on Phelps yesterday, and I liked these bits the best:

Spitz’s record lasted 36 years, and it figures to be even longer before the world sees Phelps’s successor. In 1972, Spitz swam two strokes, the freestyle and the butterfly, and none of his swims covered more than 200 meters. Phelps swam all four strokes, at distances ranging from 100 to 400 meters, and faced three rounds in each of his five individual events, one more round than Spitz had.

“I think it’s probably one of the greatest things sport in general has ever seen,” said Brendan Hansen, who swam the breaststroke leg in the winning relay Sunday. “The shame of it is other athletes aren’t going to realize how hard it is. The world is fast in swimming right now. The world was not fast when Mark Spitz did his seven.”

How fabulous was Phelps’s feat? At Sunday’s start, the Person’s Republic of Michael would have ranked fourth in gold medals and been ahead of all but 14 countries in the medal count.

[…]

Swimmers who, by any yardstick other than Phelps, were wildly successful here, were among the awed. The individual medley specialist Stephanie Rice, who became the fifth Australian to win three gold medals in a single Olympics, said, “I don’t even know how he does it.” Rice, who, like Phelps, competed in the 200 and 400 individual medleys and the 4x200 freestyle relay, became worn down from the stress and got sick. “I just don’t even know how he holds himself together,” she said.

When Phelps’ peers…swimmers who also took gold medals… look upon him with awe you know you’ve seen something special, and something that’s unlikely to be repeated in our lifetimes. It was certainly a joy to witness Phelps’ stunning accomplishment, even if it was only on teevee.

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Today’s Pic: A break in the storm clouds as they blew over Beautiful La Hacienda Trailer Park, a week ago today. The sky looks much the same as I type… but there’s no rain.

Yet.