June 2007

If It's Florida, It Must Be Termites!

After having lived in Florida for the better part of 40 years, we have never had to deal with Termites...until today! Over the weekend, we had the house tented and fumigated with Vikane, a deadly gas that will kill anything living, even plants.

We had to prepare by bagging all our food, medicine and personal items, using special non-permeable plastic bags. We took this opportunity to throw out quite a bit of unused, old and out of date material. The house feels lighter, that's for sure!

No, it's not the Ringling Circus!!

Karl ignores the "Danger" sign. I had to pull back the pool cage screen to allow for the canvas.

We left on Friday morning, and got back in late Sunday afternoon. There was still some residual cynopicrin, which burns the eyes a bit (its similar to tear gas), but after opening the house up for a few hours (during which the temperature inside soared to 85 F...), all was returned to normal.

We hope this is the end of all things Termite!

2007 GCST Summer Long Course Invitational

Long considered the most miserable of swim meets due to the heat, humidity and threatening rain/lightning, the 2007 GCST (Gulf Coast Swim Team) Summer Invitational is in the books, totally re-written by many Sharks, including Natalie!

As the kids don't swim the 800 and 1500 (yet), we didn't have to arrive until 11:00AM on Friday. This meet is a prelims/finals setup, even for 10 & U, so Natalie went to work first, trashing the competition in the 100 back! Karl started out slowly, adding some time in the 100 back and 200 free, but got into the finals in the 50 breast. Natalie then swam a pedestrian 50 breast but ran away from the field in the 50 free. Later that evening, she set new meet records in the 100 back (1:20.80) and 50 free (32.67) winning both and finished 4th in the 50 breast. Not to be outdone, Karl moved up from his seed spot (6th) to take 2nd place in the 50 breast!

On Saturday, Karl swam a decent 100 free, dropping .37 from his previous best, but didn't make the finals. His next event, the 100 breast was a different story. Natalie, meanwhile, was attacking the 100 free, 100 breast and 200IM, making finals in all 3. That evening, Karl again moved up from his seed spot (5th) to take 3rd in the 100 breast (1:29.37, -.02). Natalie again set a new meet record on the way to victory in the 100 free (1:11.72). She also out-touched her teammate to take the 100 breast (1:32.11) and finished 2nd in the 200IM in 2:54.91, a drop of 4.12 from her previous best. Almost an afterthought, the girls 10 & U Medley relay took first in another new meet record...

Karl in the 100 breaststroke preliminaries

Sunday. Normally a day of rest; but not for us waterlogged types! Karl vowed to turn his meet performance around, and boy, did he! In the 11-12 boys 200IM, he dropped nearly 6 seconds to make the finals as the 7th seed. He then swam the 50 free and 100 fly, but didn't make finals in those events. He did drop another 2.82 seconds in the fly, putting him within 2 seconds of the JO cut. Natalie swam the 100 fly, 50 back, and the grueling 400 free, taking 6th in that timed-final event (no evening swim). As the sun began to set, Karl set out to show everyone that he can challenge the other 11-12 boys; he dropped another 9 seconds off his morning swim in the 200IM, a whopping 15.50 seconds in total, and took 4th! Oh, and that happens to be another JO cut for him as well! Natalie ended her day as she started, taking the 50 back in another new meet record (38.19), and finishing 2nd in the 100 fly (1:23.47), shedding 5.44 seconds. Again, the girls 10 & U freestyle relay set a new meet record.

Natalie in the 100 Freestyle

We hung around late Sunday to see if Natalie won the High Point trophy for her age group. Alas, it was not to be; her teammate, Nancy Hu won by only 2 points! It seems the 6th place finish in the 400 free doomed Natalie...Oh well, there is the Shark Open next week!