Boomer and I spent more than four hours at Chatfield State Park today.
We hiked through massive cottonwood stands, were serenaded by nearly 100 crows, walked out onto the frozen reservoir, and climbed over dead trees and logs to see where Plum Creek enters the man-made lake.
Here are two of my favorite pictures of our day.
(Click on image to enlarge.)
Story time, boys and girls. Put another log on the fire, grab a cup of coffee, and pull up a chair.
This Thursday past was pretty eventful. It started with an assassination attempt, and ended with my beloved Sooners unable to achieve their goal.
As per my normal routine, I went to the local 24HR Fitness gym at 4:45am, got changed, and went into the indoor pool area.
I should have noticed something was amiss when I saw that the doors from both the men and women locker rooms were propped open with kick boards.
As I was walking to the opposite end of the pool, I noticed my eyes stinging a bit. That happens from time to time. I attributed this to maybe some high chlorine content.
So I jump in the pool, put my earplugs in (hate getting water in my ears,) put my goggles on, and started on my way to what was supposed to be a 1750 yard workout.
During the second or third 25 yard length, I started coughing. After 125 yards, it was getting ridiculous – I was coughing with every stroke. I was starting to feel bad, kind of like was getting a winter cold or something. Breathing was a chore. I stopped at the end of 175 yards, hung on the side of the pool, and coughed, spit and hacked. What in the world was going on? I swam back to the other end of the pool, pulled off my goggles and though, great, I’m not going to finish this workout, and I’m going to have a stupid cold for days.
I got out of the pool and staggered over to the bench where I’d left my towel. I got a big drink of water and noticed I was still having a real difficult time breathing. I was still coughing too. What the @!$#.
I’m not about to let this sudden onset of respiratory trauma keep me from my second favorite gym activity – sitting in the steam room. So I go in, and struggle just to sit there and wheeze for 10 minutes. I can’t stop thinking that it is a real drag to be sick, and that I just have to feel better.
I had a double-length shower, just letting the water fall over me.
When I get into the locker area, one of the guys that I’ve noticed swimming on other days takes a look at me and asks, did you swim? I told him I could only do 200 yards and couldn’t stop coughing. He said that there was a serious problem, that he could only do 25 yards, and went and told the staff that they should shut down the pool until someone could see what was going on.
Aha! It wasn’t a cold. That’s good. But even worse, it was some form of chemical poisoning – chlorine or other. What do I do about that? At that point I figured it would just go away as I drank lots of water and breathed fresh air.
I went to work and got there at about 6:00 – earlier than normal because of the shortened swim – and looked up “chlorine poisoning” on-line. The search returned this link. From this information, I determined that this was a likely case for me, and that I wasn’t in the severe category, but definitely serious.
I went to a meeting at 6:45. At 7:00 I was back in my office and I was still struggling to breath deeply, and any attempt to talk triggered another coughing fit.
I’d seen the phone number for the National Poison Control Center on the previously reference website, looked at my watch and decided to give them a call. Patrice, the RN who answered the call and listened to my story, gave me strong advice to leave work, take a 15 minute, extremely hot and steamy shower, followed by being outside to breath fresh air for at least 45 minutes. She took my number and said she’d call back in a couple of hours. I called Tami, let my boss know what was going on, and left work at about 7:30. By now, I had a wicked headache too.
I followed Patrice’s instructions. Meanwhile, I’d given the gym a call and let them know that they had a serious problem. The person on the other end of the line didn’t give me any confidence that they would take care of the problem. I told Tami this and boy, did she spring into action.
Tami called the Littleton Fire Department’s Hazmat Chief, and the Tri-County Health Department. Both agencies swooped down upon the gym with full vengeance.
In three to four hours time – about 11:00 – I started to feel better, but still shallow breathing. Patrice called back. She thought I was out of danger, and told me it would be a week to 10 days before I was back to normal. She said if I developed wheezing symptoms, or tightness in my chest, to go the the Emergency Room straight away.
I’m glad that Tami worked over Littleton Hazmat, Tri-County Health Dept., and 24Hr fitness. Due to her persistence, she discovered that a weeks worth of muriatic acid (pretty interesting history; pickling steel?) was released into the pool by a faulty monitor / regulator (Facilities Risk Management, anyone?)
The authorities made 24 HR drain the pool, and will enforce a requirement that it must be monitored by a human for about a month once it is restored to its proper pH levels.
I spend the rest of the day in and out of the backyard trying to breathe as much fresh air as possible. I was still having bouts of coughing fits, and talking was still a chore.
24Hour is very sorry that this happened and is taking the appropriate actions to correct the problem. I’m sort of worried that they might have red-flagged my membership, and all their associates are on the look out for the guy who narc’d on them and got them fined.
I told Tami that I’d like to go swimming tomorrow (Friday.) Tami said NO! She says that if anyone sees me swimming before his week of healing is up, to call her immediately. Guess I’ll have a whole new set of problems to deal with.
My Thursday really didn’t get any better. It was the BCS Championship game that evening, and Oklahoma was facing Florida. I think you all might know the outcome. I hope this day isn’t an indication of how 2009 will be for me.
Some good did occur Thursday.
I talked to Dad several times – which is always great.
We had a pre-game meal from Wingman. I love buffalo wings.
I learned to make and enjoy the James Bond Vesper Martini (for future reference, please limit intake to one.)
And we had a full house of Sooner fans – Me, Tami, Brit, Daner, Manda, Howie (he had my OU key chain in his pocket) Becca, Andrew and Boomer.
Today, Saturday the 10th, I’m still not 100% and it seems that Patrice was right – it will be a week to 10 days before I’m back to normal. I’m skipping the exercise routines for a few days – breathing and coughing would make this somewhat prohibitive anyway. Plus, I’m still a little sore from all the coughing on Thursday.
I’m alive, and that’s what’s important.
You might know that I have a particularly strong dislike for LSU football. If you didn’t know, here’s your introduction: I hate LSU football.
They recently displayed yet another example of just exactly why I don’t like them in the Chick-fil-A Bowl. LSU (8-5) was playing Georgia Tech (9-4.)
The following incidents occurred in the 4th quarter.
Leading 38-3, with 9:37 left in the game, LSU ran a fake punt.
Still leading 38-3 and less than 8 minutes left, LSU’s STARTING QB was throwing deep.
Still leading 38-3 and less than a minute left in the game, LSU’s STARTING QB was still in the game.
You’re a real class act, LSU.
Oh, and Happy New Year everyone.
The Worthington’s of West Centennial.
This photograph of Boomer sitting on our snowmobile sums up how cool it was to go to Winter Park and take a guided, 2 hour ride through trails and trees near the Continental Divide.
We started a new winter tradition two Sundays before Christmas in 2007.
The idea is to have each guest create an open face sandwich and name their tasty and visually appealing food item.
The Smørrebrød (originally smør og brød, meaning “butter and bread”) is a Danish word for the sandwich, and I’ve read that is an art form there.
This year’s guest list included me, Tami, Nana, Brittany, Mark, Danielle, Eric M., Amanda, Howie, Mary Becca, Andrew and Boomer.
Not that we were having a contest, but I decided that the too most “tasty and visually appealing food items” were done by Becca and Brittany.
Becca’s (pictured here) was named “The Chocolate Havarti Beef.” It was made of a slice of buttered and toasted potato bread, ranch dressing, roast beef, Havarti cheese, lettuce, dill pickles, and Hershey’s chocolate syrup.
Brit’s (pictured next) was named the “Silverware Downstairs.” It was made from a slice of buttered and toasted pumpernickel bread, sliced avocado, sliced boiled potato, slice apples, almond slivers, red and orange bell peppers, cucumber, radishes, pepperjack cheese, and Hershey’s chocolate syrup.
On a bitterly cold and snowy night, we all had a creative and tasty time.
This post is prompted by a wonderful Christmas gift given by The Worthington’s (currently) of Lexington.
William the Conqueror (French: Guillaume le Conquérant), was Duke of Normandy from 1035 and King of England from 1066 to his death. William invaded England in 1066, leading an army of (mostly) Normans to victory over the Anglo-Saxon forces of Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings.
William is often derogatorily referred to as “The Bastard” because of the illegitimacy of his birth. I like to think that persons of Anglo-Saxon descent feel he earned the moniker of “The Bastard” as a result of his illegitimacy in claiming the English throne.
The Domesday Book was the record of the great survey of England completed in 1086, executed for William (the Conquering Bastard.) The survey was similar to a census by a government of today. While spending Christmas of 1085 in Gloucester, William “had deep speech with his counselors and sent men all over England to each shire … to find out … what or how much each landholder had in land and livestock, and what it was worth.”
This desire to take a census was recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a collection of historical yearly writings in Old English chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The documents were started late in the 9th century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of Alfred the Great (849-889, king of the southern Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex.) Multiple manuscript copies were made and distributed to monasteries across England and were independently updated. In one case, the chronicle was still being actively updated in 1154.
Understand that in the 11th century (1000-1099,) the English language we know today wasn’t spoken. The language was Anglo-Saxon, a Germanic dialect, or Old English, an early form of the English language that was spoken and written between the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century. In either case, the language of 1066 was a West Germanic language, with heavy influence from Old Norse, a member of the related North Germanic group of languages.
The name we have today, Worthington, was first recorded as a village as documented in the Domesday Book (1086) as “Werditone” and probably derives from the family name of “Werden”, or a man called “Weorth”, and is most likely to have been an Anglo Saxon settlement. This village still exists today, in the county of Leicestershire.
By contrast, the next recorded reference is in the county Lancashire. The earliest recorded use of the name “Worthington” in Lancashire was in 1212, where it was found that “WORTHINGTON was held of the lord of Manchester by the service of half a knight’s fee, Thomas de Worthington being the immediate tenant.” I interpret this to mean that a Lord of Manchester had lands in Lancashire, where a certain Thomas, being a knight, paid a tenants fee to make his residence there. Thomas was originally from Worthington.
We’ve already established that some 125 years earlier, the source of our name (Werditone, Leicestershire) was recorded. Secondly, the French usage – “de” to describe that Thomas is from “Worthington” bothers me. Having established my previous Anglo-Saxon heritage prejudice about the French Bastard William should explain my dislike of this “de” usage. During the Middle Ages, when migration for the purpose of job-seeking was becoming more common, people often used their former village name as a means of identification. So if my name was Thomas, and I came from the village of Worthington, I’d introduce myself as Thomas of Worthington. If you used “de” instead, I think you could be accused of being a Francophile.
Finally, what we have as proof is this: The origin of our name is recorded in Leicestershire, which appeared as “Werditone” in the Domesday Book of 1086. In Lancashire, the name is recorded as some form of “Worthinton”, in the Curia Rolls of 1212.
The derivative for both places is the same, that is, from the Old English pre-7th Century byname “Wureth”, or “Weorth,” , both being a derivative of “worth”, meaning enclosure, and the Old English “-tun”, meaning settlement. Since the history our little village in Leicestershire is mostly that of a rural farming community, I like to think that our name really means “farm-in-town.”
The Coat of Arms or Family Crest and Motto associated with the name is a topic for another lecture. I’m relatively satisfied with the particular rendition given here.
Hello everyone.
A quick update.
Thanksgiving was nice. We went to Tim and Jeanne’s and had a wonderful afternoon. We missed Amanda as she was in Nebraska with her boyfriend and his family. (Ugh. Lame Bug-eaters.)
Tami and I are headed to San Jose this afternoon for an organizational off-site at the Seascape Resort in Aptos, California. It’s a nice little perk.
Anyone interested in College Football? If you are, you might know that there is still more controversy with the BCS. The system is flawed, and it seems that every year, yet another problem is uncovered. That is a process that needs an improvement and a mistake proofing focus. At any rate, it has allowed my beloved Oklahoma Sooners to play for the Big 12 Championship (against Booger Daniel and the Missouri Tigers.) BOOMER SOONER!
My new job is everything I expected it to be. I love going to work every day. And I love leading people to do their absolute best.
If I could ever find the time to spend some quality time with my brother Paul, I could not only catch up had have a great conversation about careers, strengths, and friends, but I could really make some much needed enhancements to this blog. (Like a “twitter” widget, for one.) Maybe over the Winter Holidays?
Everyone who reads me on Facebook, I really enjoy the interaction. It is so interesting to be plugged in to this age at what it offers.
I hope to give this blog a renewed energy in the coming weeks, or at least by the first of the new year, so thanks for being patient.
Me at 2:06pm
Trying to finish “The First 90 Days” so I can move on to more action oriented tasks.
Niece at 2:17pm
What’s “The First 90 Days?”
Me at 2:25pm
It’s a book from the Harvard Business School Press, by Michael Watkins, about “critical success strategies for new leaders at all levels.” I’m transitioning to a new leadership role in a different organization, and I’m trying to make sure I “do it right.”
Niece at 2:27pm
Wow, impressive 
Me at 2:30pm
Well, I try to be a good leader, but what I really aim for is being a perfect leader. I can use all the help I can get.
Niece at 2:35pm
That’s great…so what exactly are you leading?
Me at 2:39pm
I’m the Senior Manager of Facilities Risk Management. My group is responsible for investigating accidents that cause issues to the things we build (rockets, spacecrafts, and satellites.) We are also responsible for performing Risk Assessments, and eliminating bad conditions before accidents happen. Sounds thrilling, right?
Niece at 2:41pm
Sounds pretty intense actually. That’s really cool. Do you like your job?
Me at 2:47pm
Intense is a good way to describe the condition. What I like about my job is being a leader who can guide the team through strategy, helping them achieve success, and add value to the company. Accidents and failures cost money. We want to eliminate those conditions, or at the least minimize the potential for bad things to happen.
Niece at 2:51pm
Did you just read that in your new book? haha 
Just kidding. I’m glad you can appreciate and enjoy your job.
