Jim Matysek, web master nonpareil and extraordinaire, deserves nothing but appreciative gratitude for the past year of extraordinary Forum, Blog, and possibly Go the Distance web mastery!
Now, having thanked him for this, I propose we use this thread to jot down our various wishes for Christmas presents of the web servicey variety that we know Big Jim can provide!
Let me get the ball rolling with the present that is atop my masters swimming technology wish list:
Time charting/graphing capability!
I would love a place where all my USMS meet performances over the years are not only listed (thanks, by the way, for supplying this via the "My Meet results" link in the My USMS area), but a way of showing the results graphically by event.
Since I live in an area where most of the meets I swim in aren't USMS sanctioned or recognized, I would furthermore like to be able to manually enter meet results in this new Time Charting/Graphing Capability area so that I can get a better sense of my performance trajectories over each season and over the years.
I would futhermore like it if Santa Jim Matysek or one of his Christmas programming elves could add an age grading feature that would automatically crank out a ranking along these lines, too--and figure out some way to adjust for body suit vs. jammer swimming times so that it won't look like tons of guys suddenly got much slower and closer to death.
Chris Stevenson's age grader, which I think he's planning to recallibrate at some point, is a good example of something to incorporate into the Time charting/graphing capability (now with automatic age-grading feature)!
www.vaswim.org/.../rcalc.cgi
Okay, so that's what I want for Christmas, Santa Jim Matysek.
I want more, as well, much more, but I don't want to seem like one of those greedy children who ask for much and deserve little.
I now grant the floor to the next swimmer who wants to sit on your lap and ask for whatever it is he or she wants. I only hope, Santa Jim M., that you grant requests in the order that they were delivered to you.
Even more Smilies (to add to the great selection Jim has already included), so That Guy and I can have even more fun with our posts! :worms: (Much to the chagrin of some of the other Forumites...) :bolt:
:bliss:
:agree:Even more Smilies (to add to the great selection Jim has already included), so That Guy and I can have even more fun with our posts! :worms: (Much to the chagrin of some of the other Forumites...) :bolt:
:bliss:
:chug:
Yeah, where are the lump of coal smilies? I think I know a few worthy recipients and would like to toss them a few.
Look: a "dodge the lump of coal" smilie -> :bliss:
To echo Jim's sentiments, great job Jim and to Jim, great swims at Long Beach.
If I had a wish, it would be to be able to have the age setting for the Event Rankings remain at my age group on my computer so that I don't have to change them every time I go in to see where Jim is in relation to me.
Jim, does that make sense?
This may be easy or difficult, I don't know ...
Links to other swimmers on the Heat/Lane pages. Win or lose, male or female, young or old, I like to follow the swimmers I meet and compete against. Remember that guy in lane 8 who smoked me in the 500 free? That was great. He gave up 10 years to me & still kicked my ass. It would be neat if I had a link to his results page directly from here.
Sure, it's an indulgence. But hey, it's Christmas.
As readers of my award-deserving vlog know, Anna Lea, I am a firm believer in the old chestnut, "It is better to give than to receive."
My gift to you Jim, therefore, is the most selfless one of all: I am placing him in the role of the giver, not the receiver.
Which makes him the better person.
And when you think about it, what better gift can there be than a gift that makes you better than you already are?
Now, of course, there are no doubt philosophical conundrumists out there who have already begun to think,
"Well, if it it better to give than to receive, then a person who volunteers to be the recipient is acting altruistically...but would not the person who volunteers to be the giver to a receiver to a giver be even one step more altruistic yet? And so on and on and on in a giant solipsistic house of moral cards?"
Of course! Who could deny the force of that logic?
But the ordinary human mind can only hold so much at one time. I, for instance, am still struggling to solve equations of state via the Monte Carlo method of calculation while chewing gum!
So, to make things easier for us all, let us simply stipulate that Santa Jim Matysek is No. 1 on every decent forumite's Christmas list this year--and we have decided, en masse, to give him the gift of letting him give rather than receive this year, and all the benefits this entitles him to from the Gods on High!
As his lovely bride, I hope that you, Anna Lea, will enjoy all the spinoff benefits by proxy!
Since I live in an area where most of the meets I swim in aren't USMS sanctioned or recognized, I would furthermore like to be able to manually enter meet results in this new Time Charting/Graphing Capability area so that I can get a better sense of my performance trajectories over each season and over the years.
Didn't someone already invent a spreadsheet for this? :afraid::bolt:
And another vote for more smilies :chug:
Wow, what a disappointment. I thought this was going to be a thread about all the cool gifts you were going to GIVE Jim for Christmas.
Now I guess I have to go shopping after all. :bolt:
Great idea for a discussion.
For the FLOG, I'd love to have the option of entering a monthly goal in addition to my annual goal (complete with progress charts and nag feature). This would be great for months like February when we're going for specific February Fitness Challenge goals (speaking of FFC, will this be the year that FFC yardage is automatically drawn from the FLOG?). Unless a different yardage is specified, the default monthly goal could be 1/12 the annual goal. It would be very satisfying to reach a goal every month.
Speaking of the FLOG, does anyone know if Nike is going to sponsor the GTD event again next year? The opportunity to earn a free swim suit was a major motivation for my goal to swim 500 miles this year (just 16 miles to go!). I really appreciate Nike's sponsorship! However, next year I'd like to see a prize added for the MAD (mile-a-day, 365 miles) milestone (and perhaps a quicker turn-around for the prizes- I'm still waiting on my water bottle).
For the results section", I'd love to have my open water performances and postal swims magically appear like the pool meet results. I realize that you can't really compare performances from one open water event to another, but I like to do so anyway.
Thanks for considering these suggestions Santa Jim.
