It's all about 'who you know...'

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

I’m sorry if you don’t like to hear about local, public corruption, but its something about which I get rather incensed…which helps me burn extra calories…but necessitates a need to vent. Jobs are hard to come by in greater Cleveland over the past year or so…unless of course you’re related to Cuyahoga County Prosecutor, Bill Mason.

Bill’s put at least 13 relatives on the county payroll during his 20 years in office with taxpayers providing more than $2.2 million for their salaries during that time. You might say “only 13 in 20 years? Not so big a deal,”…but that doesn’t include friends of relatives (and there are many), and relatives working for other public officials. Some of these people were hired to positions that were never posted, thus not giving the general public the opportunity to apply.

Now…Bill’s got one pretty solid excuse he’s not using. He’s one of 15 children and as such has 119 members of his immediate family. Start adding in cousins and such and I doubt the man could possibly know who all his relatives are and may be hiring them without even knowing. Apparently, Bill declined to be interviewed by the PD and wouldn’t disclose whether other relatives have obtained public jobs, though in a statement issued through his ‘public spokesman’ (people assigned to speak for you so you don’t make an ass of yourself…I could use one of those), he said he encourages everyone, “including my family” to consider public service. Well…we would…but you’ve already filled all the jobs with your family.

Okay…enough of that. Yeah…I was in the woods hiking around looking for antlers again. I only spent 90 minutes in this futile pursuit before changing over to my running gear. I started on the bridle trails, which were a combination of ice and ankle deep mud and got discouraged with it in about five minutes. I turned around and started jogging back to the car so that I could go home and ride the trainer, but kept on going right past the car and decided to try running the road until something exploded. I crossed River Road and began working my way up Rogers Road. It’s the steep, little bastard hill upon which I’ve snapped three bicycle chains over the years and someplace I was likely to snap an achilles tendon. It hurt on the way up, but I pressed on, reaching the top in a little over four minutes (interpret as I was barely moving).

I returned to the car managing a run of 33 minutes of which all but four was on pavement. It’s the longest I’ve run on hard surfaces…without hurting myself…in about a year. I don’t see it as a new trend…I’ll hit the trails as soon as I don’t need waders to run there…but at least I got in a run.

Run duration: 33 minutes. Hike duration: 90 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 145 bpm running, 75 bpm hiking.
Calories burned during workout: 560 running. 350 hiking.