I’m a regular visitor to The YBF. For those of you not in the know, that stands for the ‘Young, Black, & Fabulous’. I gots to keep up on my peoples, ya know!

Anyway, I was looking through some recent posts and came across this one from earlier today.

YBF gave props to Cullen and showed a pic of him at one of his Diversity Tour stops. And judging from the comments, there look to be some newly created CJ fans. Never a bad thing, huh?

Photo by Getty Images…please don’t come after us, kthnx

I saw this pic on the USA Swimming website and definitely let out a hearty laugh. Not just because Ricky dwarfs the US gymnasts, but also because of how hard he is cheesin’. Nice look, “Tricky Ricky”.

ETA: The video from the Today Show

At the Women’s Big Ten Champs tonight, I wasn’t expecting to see the wonderful Peter Bick. So imagine my surprise to see him — knee pads and all — strolling around the pool deck of the McCorkle Aquatic Pavilion! I’ll have to flag him down tomorrow or Saturday to catch up!

P.S. I think this means that we may see Mr. Bick covering the men’s meet next week at his alma mater. *crosses fingers*

Don’t care about my trip to the dentist? That’s too bad, because you’re going to read about it anyway!

First, let me start by saying that I think it’s a little ridiculous for an adult to think that I am still in high school. I got to my appointment a little before 3PM yesterday and my hygienist said “Did you just come from school?” Dude, seriously? It took all the self control I possessed not to say “Yea, 10 years ago.” Do I really look like I could be in high school? I mean, yea I’ve gotten carded at rated R movies before, but that was a while ago. I guess I should take it as a compliment?

Anyway, during my last visit (6 months ago, as is recommended) the last hygienist I had turned out to be a Masters swimmer that got her workouts in with the Westerville Masters club. I even recruited her to go to Big Tens that Ohio State hosted back in February.

So, imagine my surprise when my new hygienist was also a former swimmer! A cleaning that should have take about 15-20 minutes ended up being close to 45 because he wanted to talk swimming with me. I also made it a point to tell him about the Ohio State Grand Prix meet in early April. I do as much recruiting as I can!

It’s nice to be able to go about your day-to-day activities and run into people who also share a love for the sport of swimming. That’s hard to come by for someone, such as myself, who didn’t grow up swimming or have friends who did!

Note to other Swim Aids: When someone asks your real opinion on Phelps, try to avoid a pregnant pause before you give your opinion. People tend to jump to conclusions that are usually spot on… This effectively prevents you from giving the politically correct response we’ve all been spoon-fed.

Sunday was the inter-squad meet at the HYPR Center. It was originally supposed to be last Friday at 4:00, but the water heater broke and it was post-poned until a later date, and that being said: WOW! Were my expectations NOT met!

First, I had to get out of my warm dorm room and walk across campus in 20 degree weather! Yeah, I was cold. Maybe it is a good thing that there are only three home meets!

I think the whole pool area (which had 6 lanes, one high dive, one broken low dive [and only ONE diver on the team]; and the warm-up pool was connected to the main pool) is a fourth of what the Canham Natatorium is. And I’m not even joking. It took everything in me to stay for the whole meet, which is really sad to admit.

But never fear, the look-on-the-bright-side part of me was still there. The bleachers were on deck. It was really cool sitting that close to the pool, as all the Swim Aids know how sucky my camera is. I got some great shots and I felt all VIP!

I got to see of the popular swimmers there, Hadleigh Tyler, who is from England. He was pretty good; he won all of his races. Then I saw a friend from orientation who placed third in the 200 free. I didn’t get to see her backstroke, which she is apparently really good at. And I got to see “my man” swim, but I didn’t get to identify him. Sad day, I know.

It’s kind of sad that we’re the biggest school in the state, now NCAA Division 1 ranked, but we have like, twenty swimmers (men AND women) swimming. And I only saw the coach on deck once - and I didn’t even know he was the coach! I guess I’m used to them jumping around or waving their hands in the air like they’re on fire.

Anyways, I would like to give a shout out to the fans that were sitting behind me. My friend that and I walked in with a bunch of people and they asked why I was here and I told them that I love swimming, blah blah, and about this site! Well, as I sat watching the meet I heard voices behind me:

She’s a Swim Aid?

Talk to her!

I bet she knows Amanda Beard!

To answer your questions, if you’ve checked the site recently, yes, I am a Swim Aid. Feel free to talk to me - I don’t bite! And no, I personally do not know Amanda Beard. Sorry.

Here are some pictures. Click the thumbnails for a more inspired view:

My trip to the bookstore last week (I’m not paying for all that stuff when I can read it for free in the store. Ya feel me?) to pick up Amanda Beard’s cover of Outside Magazine got me thinking.

As I looked through entirely too many sports mags, I realized that there really aren’t any swimming publications available on newsstands. Of course you see the mainstream sports receiving the lion’s share of coverage, but what about the others? I saw surfing, cycling, running, skiing, golf, and even a couple of triathlete-specific magazines. And yes, I am fully aware that triathletes are required to swim.

So I began to wonder why there aren’t any newsstand swimming options available. You always hear about how much participation age group swimming garners. One would think that those swimmers - and their parents - would be all over that. Maybe not?

I haven’t spent as long following swimming as most people have. Have their been any swimming specific magazines available for purchase at newsstands and bookstores? And is that past failure the reason there aren’t any now? Would anyone even be willing to buy one?

Just thinking out loud. Feel free to chime in with any responses. I’m extremely curious!

So, since my Algebra class is so close to the pool, I decided to hit up the HYPR center once more, just to see if the pool was open. Yeah, no such luck. But today, as I sat in my Spanish class, it dawned on me: pictures on the Internet. So I rushed back to my dorm (not really) and searched for hours (more like 30 seconds) and found these pictures. So behold: the South Dakota State Pool.