Running Journal, Wednesday, 2007-02-28

Running Journal, Wednesday, 2007-02-28
Resting heart rate: n/a (forgot)
Body Mass Index (BMI): (kilograms/(meters^2))
Weather: n/a
Temp: n/a
Time: 21:00-21:55
Terrain: flat
Comments: Watched the Sharks play the Predators this evening. Relaxed in the hot tub. Ugh. x_x
Exercise Time: 55 minutes
Goal Time: n/a
Distance (running): 7.38 km (4.58 mi)
Total Running Distance For Year: 241.73 km (150.01 mi)
Weight (after exercise):
Any irregular feelings, aches, pains, heart rate, and so forth?: head cold, sore throat
Foods eaten today:

Fortune

When I logged into my QEMU virtual GNU/Linux machine today my fortune read, You have taken yourself too seriously. I was wearing Groucho Glasses at the time I read it! Confused.

Shaving

Still shaving using the wet shaving method. Currently using:

• Merkur "Hefty Classic" Safety Razor
• Vulfix #2234 Super Badger Shaving Brush
• Ceramic Shaving Mug
  
• William's Mug Shaving Soap (~$2) Gave up on the Trumpers shaving cream since it costs $30.
• Walgreens Platinum Chrome Stainless Steel Blades (~$5 for 10 blades)
  
• Black Suede aftershave cream, an unexpected present from my grandmother two years ago that I'm trying. Gave up on the Trumpers skin food since it costs $24.
  

Have noticed room for improvement over the past year or so. The data available overwhelms me, so I think I'll note some things here and try them out over time:

• Variant of the four-pass shave
• Five blade sample pack: Merkur -> Israeli -> Derby -> Gillette -> Feather
• Post for beginner wet shavers
• Add some glycerin to the mix
• Pre-shave balm
  

Typical prep is showering, soaking the brush in warm water, lathering up, one pass north-south shave, second pass south-west to north-east or south-north. Learned that's apparently the cause of my discomfort and I've been probably putting too much pressure on the blade. Will try the four-pass shave tomorrow.

Blog Birthday

Came and went. Happy one-year birthday on Feb. 4.

Generations

Confusing:

• Consciousness Revolution
• Generation X
  
• MTV Generation
• Boomerang Generation
• Baby Busters
  

Who comes up with these labels?

Running Journal, Monday, 2007-02-26

Running Journal, Monday, 2007-02-26
Resting heart rate: n/a (forgot)
Body Mass Index (BMI): (kilograms/(meters^2)) 22.732
Weather: n/a
Temp: n/a
Time: 20:45-21:40
Terrain: flat
Comments: Dawn observes the only thing running these past few days has been my nose. ;) Today I woke up after a day or two of shedding water and realized my weight was down to 77.0 kg (169.79 lbs). I haven't weight that since high school, I'd imagine. So there's some concern right now that I watch my weight and ensure it doesn't drop too low. Tonight though I go to a BMI calculator that says a BMI of 18.5 and below indicates one is underweight. To get to 18.5, I'd have to lose 30 lbs. x_x I can't even imagine myself at 142 lbs. So that removed some worry from my mind. Tonight I came to the conclusion that running at the gym doesn't compare to the outdoors. I haven't done my 23 mile run yet that I missed on Sunday due to illness. Right now I'm thinking of lining it up for Wednesday and taking Tuesday off. Happily I think I'm on the tail-end of this cold. I'm going to conservatively say I'll be healthy again by Friday, hopefully 100% by Wednesday but these things tend to have a long-tail sometimes.
Exercise Time: 55 minutes
Goal Time: n/a
Distance (running): 7.38 km (4.58 mi)
Total Running Distance For Year: 234.35 km (145.43 mi)
Weight (after exercise): 77.8 kg (171.55 lbs), 17% body fat
Any irregular feelings, aches, pains, heart rate, and so forth?: head cold, sore throat
Foods eaten today: cereal and soy milk, grilled cheese, tomato soup, tater tots, potato gnocchi with mushroom marinara sauce

Like, T-Totally

Mr. Stallman jestingly called himself a teetotaler on Friday evening when he requested a mug and boiling water for the tea he brought. Writing up a blog post this evening from my notes, Dawn and I looked up the word on dictionary.com.

Apparently, some evidence exists that Kentuckians used the phrase T-totally:

...(T-totally "totally," not in an abstinence sense, is recorded in Kentucky dialect from 1832 and is possibly older in Irish-Eng.).

For example, "The perfume from those fleurs t-totally fills the house." (fleurs == flowers)

Others:

1832 “[Kentucky backwoodsman says] These Mingoes . . . ought to be essentially, and particularly, and TEE-TOTALLY obflisticated off of the face of the whole yearth.”—‘Legends of West Philidelphia by Judge Jas. Hall, page 38

1836 “I hope I may be TEE-TOTALLY ruinated, if I'd take eight hundred dollars for him.”—‘The Clockmaker’ (1837) by Haliburton, xix., page 195

1840 “A man in Bedlam is a very useless member of society, and a TEE-TOTAL non-productive.”— Olla Podrida (Diary on the Continent) by Marryat

The Mingos in question, of course, being the tribe forcefully relocated first to Ohio, then to Oklahoma. :P

Apparently it's still in use, though slightly archaic:

Nalo, "teetotally" is used here in Kentucky (a bit east of AY-thens and Ver-SALES), as in "I teetotally don't care at all to do that," meaning "I am totally willing to do that." It's not used often; it's used a little self-consciously as slightly archaic; but it still exists, while in the rest of the world "teetotaller" is the only surviving instance.

Google Stickies at UC-Berkeley

I discovered two of these stickies (click for high-res version) on the doors to the men's bathroom at UC-Berkeley's Soda Hall Friday evening and another two over the sinks inside. How strange. I collected the two over the sinks to see if I might figure out the story behind them.

Text #1:

1 916 599 5330
*heart* Steph

Response (automated): Unfortunately, the system cannot process your entries. Please try again later. Goodbye.

Text #2:

CALL me sexy
*heart* Katie
818 497 1372

Response (automated): Your call has been forwarded to an automatic voice-mail system as 818-497-1372 is not available. Please leave a message after the beep....

The header reads Google and the footer reads www.google.com/jobs/students.html. I thought it might represent a guerrilla recruiting technique. Dawn thinks it might be girls with job fair stickies having fun. The 818 area code represents San Fernando Valley, California - West from Glendale and the 916 area code represents Sacramento. I think the bogus numbers rules out recruiters. Note: If you look closely at the second one you can faintly see the text Gelateria Naia and NYC Marathon I wrote on the back (it's not part of the original sticky).

Richard Stallman UC-Berkeley EECS Talk: "The Free Software Movement and the GNU/Linux Operating System"

Dawn and I visited UC-Berkeley again on Friday, February 23 to attend this second talk by Richard Stallman.

Abstract (from Internet):

Richard Stallman will speak about the goals and philosophy of the Free Software Movement, and the status and history the GNU operating system, which in combination with the kernel Linux is now used by tens of millions of users world-wide.

Rough outline of the talk (my notes, transcribing his thoughts, without comment):

• Four Freedoms
• Freedom 0: The freedom to run the program for any purpose.
• Freedom 1: The freedom to study and modify the program.
• Freedom 2: The freedom to copy the program so you can help your neighbor.
• Freedom 3: The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits.
• Use free software all of the time, not just part of the time
• Result of four freedoms is democracy
  
• Proprietary, Custom, and Free software
• Proprietary software is choosing your master; free software means no master
• Custom software not distributed; custom for a particular purpose
• Proprietary software shouldn't be developed at all. It's an attack on society and betrays community
• History of Free Software Movement
• Reached ideas in 1983, at which time he had some fame as the creator of Emacs, but relatively unknown outside that community
  
• Describes himself as selected by circumstance, and he thought he had a moral obligation to do something where others were not in his position
• Product of hacker culture
• Hackers: defined as using intelligence in a playful spirit
• History of GNU
• Started in 1983, based off of UNIX, though he had no practical experience with it at the time
• No enemies at first. People laughed him off and then forgot about it since the project to replace UNIX seemed so big.
• Naming of GNU
• Hacker culture of 1970's frequently used humorous recursive acronyms to give credit to original program when porting it. For example, ZWEI stands for "ZWIE Was EINE Initially."
• Mr. Stallman decided he wanted to honor UNIX with the name, and came up with the "Not UNIX" (NU) part of the acronym first.
• He then began plugging in letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G. He enjoyed the word GNU on several levels. First, because he found it humorous (because the 'g' is normally silent); second, because it represented a pun on the word "new."
  
• Completion of GNU took ten years. Had finished everything but the kernel when Linus Torvalds adopted the GPL in 1992. GNU began development on a kernel in 1990 but Mr. Stallman says there's nothing to recommend it.
• Today GNU/Linux has well-funded enemies
  
• Copyleft
• GNU/Linux or GNU+Linux
• Open Source
• Dislikes the term Open Source because it focuses on practical values rather than ethical values.
• Defines those who label themselves apolitical as adopting a philosophy for shallow and practical reasons, while missing the most important bits. He names Linus as one person adopting this label.
• "Value Added Programs" -- recommends calling them "Freedom Subtracted Packages" instead
• Patent Law -- apparently one study found 283 US patents in GNU/Linux
• Employment
• Mr. Stallman claims that of all the jobs in IT, 10% of development is on proprietary code with the majority of the rest on custom code.
• Dismisses idea that rejection of proprietary code will impact the IT development market
• Schools
• Not only a place for learning, but a place for moral education
• Advocates teaching children four freedoms by using free software instead of teaching children proprietary software
• Saint IGNUcious
  
• Dons robes and pulls out old disc platter as halo and recites Church of Emacs bit.
• Questions and answers last about 50 minutes. Talk ended at 19:35 (140 min)
  

One-liners:

• "You can only distribute the video in OGG-Theora format...." -- Mr. Stallman before the talk to a student organizing the event. The EECS department seems to distribute by default in WMV format
  
• "You can't distribute those here." -- in reaction to seeing a student with a stack of distros for distribution at the event which did not meet the FSF's definition of free software
  
• "I'm a teetotaler" -- in response to pre-talk request for mug and boiling water for tea he brought with him
• "Te quiero siempre" -- Mr. Stallman says this to waitresses in Spanish-speaking countries (apparently means both "I want tea, please" and "I want you, please.")
• "When the US has a problem it doesn't try to solve it; it imposes the problem on the rest of the world" -- in regards to DMCA.
• "Using the word pirate doesn't make any sense because it equates helping neighbors with attacking ships": In reference to the use of the label pirate to describe people who share software in violation of the licensing agreement.
• "The US government is a violent terrorist organization."
• "We can't make ourselves perfect but we can respect freedom" -- talking about freedom and four freedoms
  
• "It's not like it's Bush who's drowning" -- As part of explaining his realization of the moral circumstance available to him in 1983, he said that it was like seeing someone drowning and you have to help them. He then followed this with "It's not like it's Bush who's drowning." He then mentions he can't swim anyway.
• "I decided I had to do GNU because of moral circumstance, or die trying...of old age, most likely" -- regarding his decision in 1983 to begin the GNU project
• "You have to start when you don't know whether you can win. Otherwise you miss opportunities. You can't start when the end is in sight." -- on starting GNU in 1983 and the enormous amount of code to be written
  
• "Proprietary software means you choose your master. Freedom means you have no master."
• "Escape from proprietary developers; escape to the real world; escape to the free world and live in freedom"
• "Freedom can easily get lost. That's the reason for the GPL"
• "School should be a place where students are expected to share software. Little Jimmy, if you bring software to school you have to bring enough for everyone."
• (As Saint IGNUcius doing his Church of Emacs bit) "vi vi vi, while being the sign of the beast, is not evil. It can, however, be considered a penance."
  

Recommendations:

• Web sites:
  
• badvista.org
  
• defectivebydesign.org
• bluraysucks.com
• audio-video.gnu.org
• Free software distros:
  
• Ututo
• Blag
• gNewSense

If anyone wants to watch the video of the talk, I believe the UC-Berkeley EECS department plans to post it to the EECS department homepage sometime within seven days:

• Link: http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/ (under section EECS Colloquium)
• For an example video, see the Feb 16 talk by Yoram Bresler
  

Running Journal, Friday, 2007-02-23

Running Journal, Friday, 2007-02-23
Resting heart rate: 59 bpm (mid-day, 60-second test)
Body Mass Index (BMI): (kilograms/(meters^2))
Weather: n/a
Temp: n/a
Time:
Terrain: flat
Comments: Was going to run but coming down with a head cold again so I chose to rest this evening. Ugh. I'm getting all the illnesses now that I'm in the student population again.
Exercise Time:
Goal Time: n/a
Distance (running):
Total Running Distance For Year:
Weight (after exercise):
Any irregular feelings, aches, pains, heart rate, and so forth?:
Foods eaten today: cereal and soy milk, orange juice, banana, Vicini's Pizza, cinnamon bread, Velveeta cheese, fig bars, bagel

Running Journal, Thursday, 2007-02-22

Running Journal, Thursday, 2007-02-22
Resting heart rate: n/a (forgot)
Body Mass Index (BMI): (kilograms/(meters^2)) 23.083
Weather: n/a
Temp: n/a
Time: 22:40-23:10
Terrain: flat
Comments: Late night tonight due to classes. Late night became light night as we both felt tired after a long day at school and grocery shopping, so we went for 30 minutes on the cycles. I watched the Citrus Heights City Council meeting and got a look at our fearless municipal leaders for the first time. Before that I watched part of the Nevada State of the State address by Republican Governor Jim Gibbons, until the closed captioning inexplicably stopped. We wanted to use the hot tub but a sign on the door to the pool area said the pool closes at 10:00PM Mon-Thurs. This left us confused because we've often gone to the hot tub late in the evening. Perhaps they've decided to begin enforcing it. We were under the assumption the hot tub closed 30 minutes before the gym closed. Perhaps we've been wrong this entire time? A review of our times at the gym the past two weeks shows times past ten. ;) We decided to try the sauna for the first time. It felt awkward because we were talking quietly in a close space with two other male strangers. We stayed for ten minutes and left.
Exercise Time: 30 minutes
Goal Time: n/a
Distance (cycling): n/a (forgot to record)
Total Running Distance For Year: 226.97 km (140.85 mi)
Weight (after exercise): 79.0 kg (174.195 lbs), 16% body fat
Any irregular feelings, aches, pains, heart rate, and so forth?: Kneecaps felt loose (for lack of a better word) at beginning of exercise as I pedaled, but this went away within one minute.
Foods eaten today: cereal and soy milk, crumpets with jam, orange juice, home-made stuffing, apple, mushroom turnovers, cheese pizza, chocolate truffles, Powerbar

Richard Stallman UC-Berkeley EECS Talk: "Copyright vs. Community in the Age of Computer Networks"

Arrival commentary (skip if only interested in talk below):

Leaving our car at a public parking structure on Center Street, we walked east to Shattuck and waited about one block north for the UC-Berkley Perimeter Bear Shuttle ('P' Bus). The bus arrived at 3:50PM, two minutes behind schedule. We discovered at this point that the shuttle costs $1/person without proper identification (we had exactly enough for the trip up, happily). It carried us up the hill to the Cory Hall stop, with Soda Hall facing us across the street.

Soda Hall's Coca-Cola bottle-colored tile base and multi-hued green tile upper reminds one immediately of the effervescent nature of it's namesake (/poetic ;). As we left the bus stop, we noticed a student walking in front of us with a backpack sporting a small circle-slash-RIAA button. "Let's follow him," I remarked to Dawn, "He'll take us right to where we want to go." And he did. We walked down the hill along Hearst for about 50 feet and then into a courtyard between Soda Hall and another hall to the east. We entered the building through the side entrance and a greeter motioned us inside a 75-seat auditorium. Since we arrived right at 4:00PM, the scheduled start time, we got seats four rows back, but dead center.

As we waited, we overheard a conversation between the man to my right and his female friend behind me. She mentioned that Mr. Stallman's visit to the campus in 2006 represented his first visit in 25 years. Apparently (her assertion) he visited in 1981 and found the campus too "crazy."

The talk started at 4:15PM, by which time the room had filled completely with mostly male students, some sitting in the two aisles. Mr. Stallman wore an orange knit shirt with khakis, and a two-inch silver button with the words "Impeach God" on the front. His full-frontal beard extended down to the base of his neck, and his hair reached past his shoulders.

Abstract (from internet):

Copyright developed in the age of the printing press, and was designed to fit with the system of centralized copying imposed by theprinting press. But the copyright system does not fit well with computer networks, and only draconian punishments can enforce it.

The global corporations that profit from copyright are lobbying for draconian punishments, and to increase their copyright powers, while suppressing public access to technology. But if we seriously hope to serve the only legitimate purpose of copyright--to promote progress, for the benefit of the public--then we must make changes in the other direction.

Rough outline of the talk (my notes, transcribing his thoughts, without comment):

• Brief history of copyright law: from earliest copies thousands of years ago, through the middle ages, to the founding of the US, to the present day
• Purpose of copyright law: two main points -- 1) to advance the public good, and 2) it has to end
• History of contemporary restrictions to copyright and freedoms to copy: copyright no longer painless, easy to enforce, or beneficial.
• Power over public wielded in name of authors, and power over authors wielded in name of public
• Copyright causes problems for digital media and digital media causes problems for copyright
• Dig on Sonny Bono and Church of Scientology's efforts to enforce copyright to prevent dissemination of church teachings
• Overview of current DRM
• DMCA: open conspiracy among companies
• AACS: don't buy Blue-Ray/HD-DVD products until DRM removed
• E-books: companies have two-pronged approach to removing freedoms regarding reading material:
• Take away rights to copy via DMCA
• Migrate everyone to e-books
• E-paper
• Solutions
• Shorten copyright to ten years starting from the date of publication
• Most titles out-of-print within three years
• Publisher (in one case) would not admit book out-of-print because they'd have to turn over right-to-publish rights to the author
• Reform breadth of activities covered to expand freedoms: three main categories
• Pratical use (to do a job): recipes, software
• Certain parties views or thoughts: biographies
• Art and entertainment (things that impact how we look at or how we use): maintain diversity
• Establish compromise copyright system
• Taxes
• Involuntary: taxes on connect time to the internet, blank discs
• Voluntary: A button to send $1 to artist to support their works

One Liners:

• "GNU software forms the core of this thing people often call Linux."
• "How does extending copyright 20 years convince 1920's authors to make more?" -- in reference to Disney's successful 1998 extension of (then) 70-year copyright law to protect the characters portrayed in the 1928 cartoon "Steamboat Willie" from entering the public domain.
• "Like tomorrow, that never comes." In reference to Disney bit above.
• "Absurd length" -- in regards to how long copyright currently lasts
• "Time ain't money, when all you got is time" (Iowa-native Greg Brown's "Just a Bum," from his 1985 album "In the Dark With You" on the Red House label). I don't remember the context.
• "Corrupt discs" (instead of compact discs) because they don't follow standards
• "Of the people, by the flunkies, for the corporations." In reference to DRM/DMCA/AACS
• Hollywood movie studios produces "utter crap." Read "Save the Cat" by Blake Snyder to understand the process (ISBN-10: 1932907009; ISBN-13: 978-1932907001)
• "To attack sharing is to attack society"
• "I'm not for open source. The term open source is used to hush up the ethical ideals of the free software movement."

Mannerisms during pauses in talk:

• rubs nose
• drinks from water bottles
• clasps hands, look at knuckles
• Never says "uh" or "um"

Mr. Stallman handed out one-inch square GNU+Linux stickers and oval-FSF stickers after the event, and offered to sell lapel pins, a GNU hat, and key chains outside on the street afterward (since he couldn't do it in the auditorium per UC-Berkeley rules). I walked up afterward and asked him about his button, and he replied, "I started wearing it when they impeached Nixon. I figured, why stop at him, let's go all the way to the top!"

If anyone wants to watch the video of the talk, apparently the UC-Berkeley EECS department plans to post it to the EECS department homepage sometime within seven days:

• Link: http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/ (under section EECS Colloquium)
• For an example video, see the Feb 16 talk by Yoram Bresler (WMV format x_x).

Running Journal, Wednesday, 2007-02-21

Running Journal, Wednesday, 2007-02-21
Resting heart rate: 68 bpm (early afternoon)
Body Mass Index (BMI): (kilograms/(meters^2)) 23.083
Weather: n/a
Temp: n/a
Time: 21:15-21:55
Terrain: flat
Comments: Dawn and I drove back from the Bay Area this evening straight to the gym. I ran 40 minutes and watched a momma hippo and her baby on Animal Planet, then switched and caught a black and white movie (I searched but couldn't find the movie's name) where a woman's courted by eight suitors, and somehow she has to escape the police and meet her love. I switched finally to Law & Order: SVU (Protection, season three, episode 55). I immersed myself in the hot tub up to my neck this evening and it felt great. Three early-twenties males came into the hot tub and spread out all over and started telling jokes back and forth. I think it was their first time in the hot tub because they walked up in sneakers and hats and hoodies and made a big deal about how hot the water felt. I enjoyed their humor for the first five minutes. After about ten minutes though, after it seemed their initial excitement wore off, I sensed some tension in their jokes, like they didn't feel comfortable relaxing around one another in a close space. On the way home Dawn and I talked about it (she had noticed it too) and we came to the conclusion that the tension stemmed from insecurity (Dawn says she heard them say something homophobic). I felt irritation after sitting with them for a while because I wanted to have a conversation with Dawn. I realized on the way home that their jokes were really a demand for attention, and I think maybe they felt defensive/awkward when Dawn and I chose to not participate in their discussion. With complete strangers, it all felt weird.
Exercise Time: 40 minutes
Goal Time: n/a
Distance (running): 5.36 km (3.33 mi)
Total Running Distance For Year: 226.97 km (140.85 mi)
Weight (after exercise): 79.0 kg (174.195 lbs), 16% body fat
Any irregular feelings, aches, pains, heart rate, and so forth?: None
Foods eaten today: cereal and soy milk, crumpets with jam, orange juice, chinese fried rice, spring rolls, chow mein, bagel with Velveeta cheese

Eating small meals regularly

Dawn and I decided to try eating small meals regularly throughout the day instead of eating fewer smaller meals.

This is a big change for me. I come from a farming family. My father ate a big breakfast and a big supper, because that's the times he had a chance to eat. My mom often brought him lunch in the field, where they ate together at the tractor.

I'm searching for experiences. So far I found this idea which seems simple enough to make routine:

Maybe scheduling is the issue? Space your “MAJOR” meals apart enough so that your “MINOR” portions get an adequate gap, so you begin craving them. Try this:

(MAJOR) 6am Breakfast
(minor) 9am snack
(MAJOR) 12pm Lunch
(minor) 3pm snack
(MAJOR) 6pm Dinner
(minor) 9pm snack

Basically, every quarter of an analog watch is when you eat. That works out to 3 hour blocks, a natural interval to take a break. This forces me to stay on schedule b/c the last thing I want to do is to conscientiously count the hours.

The 06:00 breakfast might be a bit of a stretch these days.

Links:

Frugal Lunches
http://www.cleverdude.com/articles/finances/frugal-lunch-by-clever-dudette/

Running Journal, Tuesday, 2007-02-20

Running Journal, Tuesday, 2007-02-20
Resting heart rate: n/a (forgot)
Body Mass Index (BMI): (kilograms/(meters^2)) n/a (forgot)
Weather: n/a
Temp: n/a
Time: 21:05-22:00
Terrain: flat
Comments: Dawn and I exercised tonight at California Family Fitness in Orangevale after classes. I watched the second half of the movie Ray, starring Jamie Foxx. I choked up at the end when he broke free of heroin. The last fifteen minutes I felt tired. The first 30 minutes I used up energy with (what seems to be) an inefficient running stride which felt strong (and fun) but wore me out. I didn't know much about Ray Charles regarding his addiction and his decision to not play segregated clubs in Georgia in the 60's. His acceptance of the public apology from the Georgia legislature 20 years later also moved me. I felt tired this evening because I've spent the last two days studying for my first assembly exam at ARC. The juice is flowing with regards to introductory assembly ideas. I can convert at will between hex, binary, and decimal. I can do two's complement, write code, predict setting of flags, and so forth. Fun fun fun. :) I'll forget everything by Thursday class. ;)
Exercise Time: 55 minutes
Goal Time: n/a
Distance (running): 7.38 km (4.58 mi)
Total Running Distance For Year: 221.61 km (137.52 mi)
Weight (after exercise): n/a (forgot)
Any irregular feelings, aches, pains, heart rate, and so forth?: None
Foods eaten today: cereal and soy milk, low-fat mixed berry yogurt, Mr. Pickle's Bugs Bunny sandwich, peanut butter cookie, potato salad, Powerbar, home-made stuffing, jasmine rice with lentil soup, chocolate peanut butter cups

Running Journal, Monday, 2007-02-19

Running Journal, Monday, 2007-02-19
Resting heart rate: 54 bpm (mid-morning)
Body Mass Index (BMI): (kilograms/(meters^2)) 23.258
Weather: n/a
Temp: n/a
Time: 20:13-20:58
Terrain: flat
Comments: Dawn and I exercised on elliptical machines this evening at California Family Fitness in Orangevale. We watched Deal or No Deal (season two, episode 86) the entire time on the closed-captioned televisions across the room. Afterward we sat in the hot tub for fifteen minutes. About half-way through the Monte Hall problem came into my head.
Elliptical Time: 45 minutes
Goal Time: n/a
Distance (elliptical): n/a (forgot)
Total Running Distance For Year: 214.23 km (132.94 mi)
Weight (after exercise): 79.6 kg (175.52 lbs), 17% body fat
Any irregular feelings, aches, pains, heart rate, and so forth?: None
Foods eaten today: cereal and soy milk, non-fat strawberry yogurt, vegetable lasagna, stuffing, orange juice, apple, chocolate peanut butter cups, fig bars, slices of cinnamon bread

GNU Assembler Documentation

Reading GNU assembler documentation this evening, and several bits of humor jumped out at me (emphasis mine):

• result, size and value are absolute expressions. This emits repeat copies of size bytes. Repeat may be zero or more. Size may be zero or more, but if it is more than 8, then it is deemed to have the value 8, compatible with other people's assemblers. The contents of each repeat bytes is taken from an 8-byte number. The highest order 4 bytes are zero. The lowest order 4 bytes are value rendered in the byte-order of an integer on the computer as is assembling for. Each size bytes in a repetition is taken from the lowest order size bytes of this number. Again, this bizarre behavior is compatible with other people's assemblers. Link
  
• Because as tries to assemble programs in one pass, new-lc may not be undefined. If you really detest this restriction we eagerly await a chance to share your improved assembler. Link

Believe me, this is funny stuff, relative to what I'm slogging through. ;)

Stallman to Speak At UC-Davis on Thursday

Ugh. x_x Dawn and I have classes on Thursday. We might see him talk at UC-Berkeley on Wednesday or Friday (traffic, double-ugh).

Radio Song

Heard this one today:

Garrison Keillor and Prudence Johnson's cover of the Rolling Stones' "As Tears Go By," from their 1965 album December's Children (And Everybody's) on the ABKCO label. Link: A Prairie Home Companion at around 39 minutes.

Running Journal, Sunday, 2007-02-18

Running Journal, Sunday, 2007-02-18
Resting heart rate: n/a (forgot)
Body Mass Index (BMI): (kilograms/(meters^2)) 22.907
Weather: n/a
Temp: n/a
Time: 19:30-21:00
Terrain: flat
Comments: Speedwork this evening at California Family Fitness in Orangevale. I ran five miles at 10:10 pace (the pace I'll be running between walk breaks in the marathon itself), then walked for five minutes in-between repeats. The PowerBar seemed to help with energy a lot and I finished feeling strong. I watched the end of the 1995 Gene Hackman vehicle, The Quick and the Dead (directed by Sam Raimi). After that I watched 30 minutes of The Simpsons (season 18, episode 391 (!), Springfield Up). Then I watched the end of Public Trust, Private Interests (Ethics in Government) from the 1988 PBS program Ethics In America (now called the Fred Friendly Seminars, I believe). The guy I react to with irritation when he sings was there on the elliptical machine. Seems really lonely. I give him credit for coming out each night and giving it all he's got, but it's no excuse for interrupting everyone else. :P Yikes, another low weight reading. :P
Running Time: 90 minutes
Goal Time: n/a
Distance (running): 8.05 km (5 mi)
Total Running Distance For Year: 214.23 km (132.94 mi)
Weight (after run): 78.4 kg (172.87 lbs), 16% body fat
Any irregular feelings, aches, pains, heart rate, and so forth?: None
Foods eaten today: cereal and soy milk, pineapple, Trader Joe's Mexican quiche (yum), chocolate peanut butter cups, Daim, cinnamon bread slice, Powerbar, mushroom, spinach, and garlic pizza, tater tots

Consanguinity

Wikipedia clarifies my confusion over first and second cousins, and the remove business (click to enlarge). I also learned a new word.

Fashion

Shoes, shoes, shoes. Tonight I'm looking for dress shoes.

On Valentine's Day Dawn and I visited the Arden Fair Mall and looked at rubies and amethyst for her and dress shoes for me. I found several brands at Macy's that had the look I liked:

• Alfani Lexington (Macy's/Bloomingdale's house brand)
  
• Kenneth Cole Reaction T-Flex
• Bostonian Tahoe and Akron
• Rockport (I wrote down capital and shareholder but I can't find a link)

I'm a smart guy, so when it comes to shoes I think, ok, I'll look it up on the intertubes and find out better prices and brands, and make an informed decision.

My first stop was a Forbes article listing the world's top shoe companies and conversations with image consultants suggesting good pairs of high-end dress shoes start at $350. This is (in their judgment) the cream of the crop: New & Lingwood, Crockett & Jones, J.M. Weston, Jeffery West, John Lobb, Tanino Crisci, Edward Green, and Alden.

Things I learned:

• Most high-end dress shoe lines seem to come from Britain, Italy, or America
• J.M. Weston's web site includes a video on polishing and glazing shoe leather
• Don't buy brown shoes, instead buy oxblood (charming, isn't it?), burgundy, cognac, or honey colors. As the Frank Zappa song goes, "Brown shoes don't make it."

I also learned from price-comparisons on the internet that the prices for brands at Macy's seemed competitive (+/- $10).

Fashion 4 Nerds suggests shoes from Aldo.

I learned from Wikipedia that three general categories of shoes exist:

1. Balmorals (laces hold together slit in upper)
   
2. Blüchers (laces hold together leather flaps attached to upper)
   
3. Monk-straps (buckle/strap instead of laces)

There are also three types of tips to dress shoes:

1. Plain-toes (no cap)
   
2. Cap-toes (extra layer that caps the toe area)
   
3. Wing-tips (extra layer that caps the toe area and extends along sides of shoes)

Zappos.com seems to house an extensive collection. These people from Wisconsin suggest Allen Edmonds.

My last stop this evening was the Style Forum, where they post pictures of colors of various shoe lines, including several from above.

Happy Lunar New Year

Wishing a happy new year to the billions of people living in China, Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Mongolia, Tibet (and elsewhere). February 18 marks the start of the 2007 lunisolar calendar year.

Zen and the Art of Saturday Car Maintenance

Today's zen moments:

• wet-sanded and polished the head lamps
• de-bugged and de-tarred
  
• cleaned the engine with Gunk's foamy engine brite
• bought another car cover to help minimize number of bird clean-ups

Sea Foam calls to me.

It's nice to know that the Ford Escort community seems to have regrouped a bit after the loss of the http://escortracing.com forums. :)

Running Journal, Friday, 2007-02-16

Running Journal, Friday, 2007-02-16
Resting heart rate: n/a (forgot)
Body Mass Index (BMI): (kilograms/(meters^2)) forgot
Weather: n/a
Temp: n/a
Time: n/a
Terrain: flat
Comments: Ran for 55 minutes this evening. Since I'm writing this on Sunday I've forgotten everything about the exercise session. :P
Running Time: 55 minutes
Goal Time: n/a
Distance (running): 7.38 km (4.58 mi)
Total Running Distance For Year: 213.56 km (132.52 mi)
Weight (after run): n/a (forgot)
Any irregular feelings, aches, pains, heart rate, and so forth?: n/a (forgot)
Foods eaten today: n/a (forgot)

Land of Creative Driving

That's Sacramento this past week.

I've noticed three or four original driving techniques in the last week or two. Yesterday a forty-something female driver in a mid-sized sedan drove up onto the sidewalk in an attempt to pass a line of ten cars waiting at the San Juan and Madison stop light. A telephone pole forced her to stop about four cars from the intersection, where she cut off someone else waiting to turn right. I also turned right and followed her down Madison, meeting up with her again at the stoplights.

In almost all cases, driving that I react to with nervousness seems to originate with impatience in the other driver. Running red lights, driving on sidewalks, turning left from a right-turn only lane, zooming back and forth between lanes to get ahead one or two car lengths, and so forth. About 90% of the time it seems to involve teenage or twenty-something males, but 10% of the time it involves a thirty-year-old or up person, sometimes even white-haired people.

America's Other Space Program

Saw this on a license plate frame yesterday:

JP Aerospace: America's Other Space Program, http://jpaerospace.com

KYDS Songs

Songs I've heard recently:

Long Beach, CA-based The Mars Volta's "Drunkship of Lanterns," from their 2003 album De-Loused in the Comatorium on the Universal Music label. Studio take. Live video. The Mars Volta crafted the album around a fictional story of someone going through a drug-induced coma.

Victoria, British Columbia-native Nelly Furtado's "Say It Right," from her 2006 album Loose on the Mosley Music/Geffen labels. Video. I hated her breakout single I'm Like A Bird (written in 20 minutes, and it shows) so I felt surprise when I learned she sang this song. Ms. Furtado is Portuguese-Canadian. :)

Patch

While walking to Dawn's math professor's office this morning, I noticed the messenger bag of a female Asian student in front of me sporting a patch reading:

• Attack
• Summon
• Magic
• --> Item
• Run

Cute :)

Running Journal, Tuesday, 2007-02-13

Running Journal, Tuesday, 2007-02-13
Resting heart rate: n/a (forgot)
Body Mass Index (BMI): (kilograms/(meters^2)) 23.258
Weather: n/a
Temp: n/a
Time: 21:20-22:15
Terrain: flat
Comments: Walking around California Family Fitness Orangevale impresses upon me the saying, Like a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. I have door-open-ophobia, the certain dread that the door handle I'm reaching for will suddenly swing open and injure me. I think about this every time I enter the locker room, the hallway to the pool, and the stairwell to the second floor. Dawn and I arrived without eating, so we felt hungry going in. I watched Camp Lazlo (season three, episode 35, Squirrel Scout Slinkman), then tuned in to the end of the Schwarzenegger-vehicle Terminator III. We relaxed in the hot tub and left quickly to get home and eat.
Running Time: 55 minutes
Goal Time: n/a
Distance (running): 7.38 km (4.58 mi)
Total Running Distance For Year: 206.18 km (127.94 mi)
Weight (after run): 79.6 kg (175.52 lbs), 17% body fat
Any irregular feelings, aches, pains, heart rate, and so forth?: Right toe felt sore initially, then went away. Muscles behind right knee felt sore, also went away.
Foods eaten today: orange juice, cereal with soy milk, banana, yogurt, veggie sandwich at Lido's, Twix candy bar, asian rice crackers, cottage cheese, grilled cheese, split pea soup, A&W root beer, brownie

Running Journal, Monday, 2007-02-12

Running Journal, Monday, 2007-02-12
Resting heart rate: 54 bpm (60-second test, mid-morning)
Body Mass Index (BMI): (kilograms/(meters^2)) 23.433
Weather: n/a
Temp: n/a
Time: 22:10-22:55
Terrain: flat
Comments: Dawn and I arrived late to the gym this evening. I planned to exercise on the elliptical machine, but arriving upstairs we found the man whose singing we react to with irritation. I decided to exercise next to Dawn on the cycling machine rather than walk across the upstairs to the elliptical. I started out on Fat Burn mode with a target heart rate of 124. I gradually got up to about 115 and felt my leg muscles straining (after yesterday's run of 10 miles) so I decreased the target heart rate to 115. After a while I felt stronger, increasing the RPMs up to 110. At this point I began increasing the target heart rate by five, plateauing, increasing by five, plateauing, and so forth, until I reached a target heart rate of 140 with about five minutes left. The gradual increase helped a lot with my leg muscles, and after the exercise I felt tired but strong. :) We relaxed in the hot tub and it felt really nice; no dizziness. I think the difference here is the amount of water consumed. During exercise I consumed the full water bottle; during the hot tub, I consumed another full water bottle. This represents a fundamental exercise lesson, one I'll keep learning until I make hydration a top priority during exercise. Happily, I also seem to have regained weight, from a low of 78 kg after the 20 mile run.
Biking Time: 45 minutes
Goal Time: n/a
Distance (biking): 28.97 km ( 18.00 mi)
Total Running Distance For Year: 198.80 km (123.36 mi)
Weight (after run): 80.2 kg (176.84 lbs), 17% body fat
Any irregular feelings, aches, pains, heart rate, and so forth?: None
Foods eaten today: orange juice, quick oats with brown sugar and raisins, banana, chocolate truffles, chocolate bar, string cheese, CLIF bar, spinach mushroom & garlic pizza, sparkling pomegranate juice, leftover tortellini with marinara sauce, vanilla-bean ice cream and pecans

Running Journal, Sunday, 2007-02-11

Running Journal, Sunday, 2007-02-11
Resting heart rate: 56 bpm (60-second test, mid-morning)
Body Mass Index (BMI): (kilograms/(meters^2)) 23.083
Weather: n/a
Temp: n/a
Time: 18:55-20:55
Terrain: flat
Comments: Watched the end of Law and Order (season 14, episode 321, Everyone Loves Raimando's), then watched Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends (season two, episode 25, Bloo Done It), then the second half of the movie Office Space. Today I ran 10 miles, and I discovered the treadmills only go up to 99 minutes. :P I guess this makes sense for 99.9% of people. I realized as I watched car commercials how silly it is to put up disclaimers reading This is a simulation. Cars cannot really drive on buildings. x_x Welcome to the machine. I'm pretty sure that's not what Pink Floyd meant when they wrote the song but I think it fits the American litigious sub-culture. This is the first time I've run more than 55 minutes on a treadmill. The slowing down and speeding up didn't pose as much of a challenge as I thought it might. I timed myself with my watch to take four-minute runs at five mph, then a one-minute walk break at three mph. Unfortunately, I forgot my water bottle. x_x After 90 minutes, I felt parched. I got off the treadmill twice to get water from Dawn, who brought in her coffee mug to fill with water. The first time I got off, I paused the treadmill, but accidentally hit the stop button on the arm. I think with the water running on a treadmill might be just bearable. ;)
Running Time: ~2:00
Goal Time: 2:00
Distance (running): 16.09 km (10.0 mi)
Total Running Distance For Year: 198.80 km (123.36 mi)
Weight (after run): 79.0 kg (174.20 lbs), 17% body fat
Any irregular feelings, aches, pains, heart rate, and so forth?: Sore back, right knee feels sore
Foods eaten today: buckwheat toaster waffles with maple syrup, banana, fat-free strawberry yogurt, orange juice, cake, cookies, crackers, nuts and chocolate, punch, cheese, broccoli rice au gratin, green beans, tortellini with marinara, soy milk, wheat bread

Running Journal, Saturday, 2007-02-10

Running Journal, Saturday, 2007-02-10
Resting heart rate: 60 bpm (60-second test, late morning)
Body Mass Index (BMI): (kilograms/(meters^2)) 23.083
Weather: n/a
Temp: n/a
Time: 19:06-19:21
Terrain: n/a
Comments: Running 10 miles on Sunday. Today is an off day. Dawn and I drove in the pouring rain to the gym this evening and sat in the hot tub for 15 minutes. The rain pelted us as we relaxed, something neither of us had experienced. The drops pattered around us and the wind swept away the heat of the pool, allowing us to relax comfortably without overheating. We held each other for the final five minutes. This was the first night we decided to leave our towels in the hallway leading to the pool area, since the rains came late this winter.
Running Time: n/a
Goal Time: n/a
Distance (running): n/a
Total Running Distance For Year: 182.71 km (113.36 mi)
Weight (after run): 79.0 kg (174.20 lbs), 16% body fat
Any irregular feelings, aches, pains, heart rate, and so forth?: None
Foods eaten today: honey bunches of oats with cinnamon clusters cereal, soy milk, fat-free strawberry yogurt, cookies, jasmine rice with Thai peanut sauce, cottage cheese

Cat In Space On a Keyboard

This is what you see when you die.

Radio Songs

Songs I heard this week:

Philadelphia-born Mirah's "Cold Cold Water" from her 2002 "Cold Cold Water EP" on the K Records label. Audio accompanying fan vid.

Detroit-based The Supremes' (sans Mary Wilson and Cindy Birdsong) cover of "Someday We'll Be Together" from their 1969 album Cream of the Crop on the Motown label. This was Diana Ross' final Supremes single before embarking on her solo career. Audio accompanying fan vid. What an airy voice. :)

Running Journal, Friday, 2007-02-09

Running Journal, Friday, 2007-02-09
Resting heart rate: n/a (forgot)
Body Mass Index (BMI): (kilograms/(meters^2)) 23.258
Weather: n/a
Temp: n/a
Time: 20:35-21:30
Terrain: n/a
Comments: Watched My Gym Partner's A Monkey (season three, episode 30) and Squirrel Boy (season two, episode 15) on the Cartoon Network this evening. Neither one really grabbed me but the closed captioning really made the time fly by. I felt really strong this evening. Oh, and Mr. Creepy returned this evening for an encore performance on the elliptical machine, singing loudly to himself as he listened to his headphones. He came over to the treadmill next to mine just as I finished. I feel concern when around him because I want predictability in the people I interact with in the gym, and also awareness that singing loudly distracts gym patrons.
Running Time: 55 minutes
Goal Time: n/a
Distance (running): 7.37 km (4.58 mi)
Total Running Distance For Year: 182.71 km (113.36 mi)
Weight (after run): 79.6 kg (175.52 lbs), 16% body fat
Any irregular feelings, aches, pains, heart rate, and so forth?: My left toe felt a bit sore on a few impacts. I noticed the toenail looks stressed from where it was black and blue.
Foods eaten today: spaghetti with cheese, broccoli, red wine, too many chocolate-chip and oatmeal cookies, soy milk

Ansel Adams Photo Exhibit At The Crocker until May 6

Posting so we don't forget

Running Journal, Thursday, 2007-02-08

Running Journal, Thursday, 2007-02-08
Resting heart rate: 61 bpm (60-second test, mid-afternoon)
Body Mass Index (BMI): (kilograms/(meters^2)) 23.141
Weather: n/a
Temp: n/a
Time: 21:20-22:05
Terrain: n/a
Comments: Dawn and I exercised at California Family Fitness in Orangevale this evening. We both exercised on the bikes. I felt good so I chose cardio with a target heart rate of 153 this evening. Big mistake. I think the bike waits for about five minutes to pass before stressing the body, to allow for warm-up. I was cruising along at about 95 bpm when wham, the resistance began increasing steadily over the course of about two minutes to the point where I felt a real struggle. I eventually felt exhaustion creeping in and I slowed down, increasing the resistance. It became a struggle to even turn the bike wheel without the electronics going into pause mode. Pause mode gives me a one-second breather before the bike realizes I faked it and then the resistance piles back to where it was. We played this game for numerous cycles until I realized I couldn't go for another 30 minutes doing that (I just barely made the target heart rate). I switched to fat burn mode, with a heart rate of 124, and cruised it out for the rest of the workout. Whew, I thought. Watched some meaningless garbage on TV. It was very weird seeing Arnold, our governator, in some muscle-bound fantasy role. XD
Biking Time: 45 minutes
Goal Time: n/a
Distance (biking): n/a (forgot)
Total Running Distance For Year: 175.34 km (108.78 mi)
Weight (after run): 79.2 kg (174.64 lbs), 17% body fat
Any irregular feelings, aches, pains, heart rate, and so forth?: None
Foods eaten today: eggplant and pepper panini, apple, CLIF bars, cottage cheese, green olives, pesto gnocchi with marinara sauce and mozzarella cheese, wheat bread, vanilla-bean ice cream, spinach

Running Journal, Wednesday, 2007-02-07

Running Journal, Wednesday, 2007-02-07
Resting heart rate: 51 bpm (60-second test, mid-morning)
Body Mass Index (BMI): (kilograms/(meters^2)) 23.141
Weather: n/a
Temp: n/a
Time: 16:47-17:27
Terrain: n/a
Comments: Watched the end of Avatar: The Last Airbender (season two, episode five, Avatar Day) and Spongebob Squarepants (season three, episode #54, The Great Snail Race and Mid-Life Crustacean). I finished by increasing my speed to 6.0 mph, then to 7.0 mph. Without the captioning that I had last night, I found the television much less engrossing. I still have a head cold but it's feeling better now.
Running Time: 40 minutes
Goal Time: n/a
Distance (running): 5.36 km (3.33 mi)
Total Running Distance For Year: 175.34 km (108.78 mi)
Weight (after run): 79.2 kg (174.64 lbs), 17% body fat
Any irregular feelings, aches, pains, heart rate, and so forth?: None
Foods eaten today: cinnamon-bread, oatmeal, toaster waffle with maple syrup, orange juice, rice with organic black bean soup, vanilla-bean ice cream

William Safire's Rules For Writers

Today's fortune:

Remember to never split an infinitive. The passive voice should never be used. Do not put statements in the negative form. Verbs have to agree with their subjects. Proofread carefully to see if you words out. If you reread your work, you can find on rereading a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing. A writer must not shift your point of view. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction. (Remember, too, a preposition is a terrible word to end a sentence with.) Don't overuse exclamation marks!! Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more words, to their antecedents. Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is. Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky. Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing. Always pick on the correct idiom. The adverb always follows the verb. Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague; seek viable alternatives.

Did Mr. Safire really write the above? Who knows.

Bumper Stickers

Can anyone decipher this one?

Faces faces faces ZOMG

On the same car, a sticker for Suburban Legends.

QEMU Accelerator (KQEMU Module) is Open Source!

Link

And the important question:

• How is QEMU pronounced?
• Quem
  
• Q-M
  
• Q-M-U

:)

Running Journal, Tuesday, 2007-02-06

Running Journal, Tuesday, 2007-02-06
Resting heart rate: 53 bpm (60-second test, early-morning)
Body Mass Index (BMI): (kilograms/(meters^2)) 23.492
Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR): 1904 calories
Weather: n/a
Temp: n/a
Time: 21:55-22:50
Terrain: n/a
Comments: Watched two episodes of season-two Futurama this evening on Adult Swim; Raging Bender (episode 12) and A Bicyclops Built for Two (episode 13). I enjoyed them both and before I knew it the 55 minutes were up. :o Everything went smoothly this evening. We exercised late, so we had the gym mostly to ourselves, without the heat associated with everyone else being there. No sign of Mr. Creepy tonight.
Running Time: 55 minutes
Goal Time: n/a
Distance (running): 7.37 km (4.58 mi)
Total Running Distance For Year: 169.98 km (105.45 mi)
Weight (after run): 80.4 kg (177.28 lbs), 17% body fat
Any irregular feelings, aches, pains, heart rate, and so forth?: None
Foods eaten today: toaster waffles, blueberry bagel, veggie sandwich, pickle, angel-hair pasta with veggie meatballs and marinara, mozzarella cheese, pumpkin pie

Calendar Days

Here's a question that I'm having some difficulty pinning down:

Why do some months have different number of days than other months?

So far I've tracked it back to following the lunar cycle of 29.5 days. The Greek Attic Calendar roughly followed this with alternating months of 29 and 30 days. I'm sort of stumped on the exact history of how it went from that to the current 28 days in February. Still looking.

Five Senses of American River Parkway Running

A stub of a list (in no particular order):

• Sights:
• Blue sky
• American River
• Caterpillars in mid-May
• Black-Tailed Deer
• Acorn Woodpecker
• Wild Turkey
• Jack Rabbit
• Squirrels
• White and Brown Cranes
• Common Merganser
• Mallard Duck
• Spawning Chinook Salmon in mid-November
  
• Tastes:
• Salty sweat
• Cold water
• Chocolate PowerBar
• Blackberries in mid-July
  
• Sounds:
• Cry of a sea-gull
• Duck honking
• Dog barking
• Bikes:
• Approaching
• Receding after passing
• Whirring of disk wheels
  
• Gliding noise of rollerblades
  
• Crunch of sneaker on trail dirt
• Inhalation and exhalation of breath
• Sloshing of water bottle in left hand
  
• Tactiles:
• Holding water bottle in left hand
  
• Smells:
• Scent of dry leaves and other plant material
• Smoke from charcoal grill
• Fish remains
  

Running Journal, Monday, 2007-02-05

Running Journal, Monday, 2007-02-05
Resting heart rate: 57 bpm (60-second test, mid-morning)
Body Mass Index (BMI): (kilograms/(meters^2)) 23.258
Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR): 1898 calories
Weather: n/a
Temp: n/a
Time: 19:50-20:35
Terrain: n/a
Comments: Dawn and I exercised on elliptical machines this evening at California Family Fitness in Orangevale. I wanted to do a light workout after the 20-mile run on Sunday so I chose cross-training mode for the first time at level five (of 20). We watched season two, episode 81 of Deal or No Deal featuring an Italian, Giuseppe Ianello. Toward the end of our workout, a guy got on the elliptical to Dawn's right. He had headphones on and started singing to himself. x_x I think he noticed Dawn and I talking (not about him) because he started initiating conversation with her while still grooving with his tunes. Then he started singing something like "sexy...sexy...sexy..." (though I think Dawn is sexy, he was obviously grooving to the music and not directing his comments to anyone in particular). x_x I cannot make this stuff up. Happily, we ended our workout at about this time and we didn't have to deal with him anymore. :P Dawn and I talked about how to handle these situations in the future. We also found a page on how to avoid flirts.
Elliptical Time: 45 minutes
Goal Time: n/a
Distance (elliptical): n/a (forgot)
Total Running Distance For Year: 162.61 km (100.87 mi)
Weight (after run): 79.6 kg (175.52 lbs), 16% body fat
Any irregular feelings, aches, pains, heart rate, and so forth?: None
Foods eaten today: cinnamon and raisin granola cereal, blueberry bagel with Smart Balance, ramen noodles and crackers, apple, DiGiorno's spinach, garlic, and mushroom pizza

Running Journal, Sunday, 2007-02-04

Running Journal, Sunday, 2007-02-04
Resting heart rate: 65 bpm (60-second test, mid-morning)
Body Mass Index (BMI): (kilograms/(meters^2)) 22.966
Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR): 1879 calories
Weather: mostly sunny, calm
Temp: 17 C (62.6 F)
Time: 11:36-16:15
Terrain: flat, mild hills
Comments: 20 miles today. Head cold persisted today so I went out slow. Realized I forgot my lip balm. x_x Thought about wearing a Go Colts shirt today given the Super Bowl. Felt tired, mentally muted. A bike passed me with a radio set at a thoughtfully medium volume level near mile 18.5. At mile 18 I noticed a large crowd of people, perhaps an office party or a class reunion. I went through some of the things I remembered from two weeks ago, like relaxing, staying at a pace where I felt mentally alert, and so forth. It sort of helped but I think the head cold plus lack of sleep caused me to feel tired. Around mile 18 I noticed a house across the river painted yellow with a blue roof that in my opinion stood out like a sore thumb. :P At mile 17.5, I passed the cat feeder guy that Dawn and I met a few months ago. I also passed the older bearded runner I frequently see on weekends around mile 18. I enjoy seeing other people on the Parkway and being seen. I thought, how do I want to spend my time running today? Slow and enjoy it, or fast and feel additional soreness? I chose to go slow. It sort of helped, but I still felt tired. x_x At mile 17 I passed a biker talking on his cell phone saying that they had to be back before the Super Bowl. :) I noticed around mile 16 that I was rubbing off the external volume markings on my water bottle. Made a mental note to use permanent marker to record them before they completely disappeared. At mile 15.5 I thought, I'm feeling better. I stopped when I had a thought I wanted to record and took my time with refilling my water so I might drink about eight ounces every 20 minutes. Around mile 15.5 I also noticed warnings about Mountain Lion sightings around the Parkway. Also, the field sprayed with RoundUp had orange fencing around the western perimeter for some reason. Due to my head cold, the run quickly became an exercise in snot management. ;) Around mile 15, I also thought up the poetic thought of leaving my prints in the dust as I ran along the Parkway, along with the others before me and after. At mile 14.5, a biker closely followed by a rollerblader passed me. It looks like so much fun. As I crossed the Harold M. Richey Memorial Bike Bridge between Goethe Park and William B. Pond Park, I heard a biker with a bike-radio playing A Prairie Home Companion. Garrison Keilor's voice is unmistakable. It was around this point that I ran out of water, so I went a bit longer than 20 minutes before stopping at the 13.5 mile bathroom in William B. Pond Park for a refill. I remembered that two weeks ago my mental goal was How do I feel when I finish? This helped me stay relaxed. At mile 12.5, I passed mile 91.7 of the Kinder Morgan petroleum pipeline (363-1666). The signs read that tampering with them results in a felony punishable by $5,000 and/or up to one year imprisonment. :P Yeesh. At mile 12 to my dismay I noticed that the Rangers had shut down the pipes to the fountain. This meant another two miles without water. :P At mile 11 (which has no sign post, by the way), I passed a plaque reading, Jo Dallen Hagedorn Family Grove, with Natural Live Oaks, Planted and Cared for by Community Volunteers (established 1988 by the Sacramento Tree Foundation). At mile 10.5 I passed a sign with graffiti reading Leaf, Earth First, followed by the Anarchist symbol. Lovely, Leaf. x_x It was at this point that I thought it might be fun to have a shirt that reads, Runner Carries No Cash. Not that I've ever felt threatened. Mile 10-11 in my mind is the second most beautiful stretch of trail behind mile 18.5-19. Shady, next to the river, winding, quiet. At mile 10 I stopped and used the bathroom and refilled my water bottle to the top. The cat feeder guy passed me, biked up the embankment to Watt Avenue, and continued south across the bridge. A baby in a bike-carrier began crying, but to me it sounded sweet. :) The parents seemed attentive and gave it lots of attention. Turning around and running east I noticed a slight breeze in my face, blowing the wonderful scent of dry leaves and other plant material. The return trip sapped my mental thoughts. I felt tired. I noticed it might hold some interest to create a five-senses blog detailing some of the things each sense picks up during a run: the cry of a seagull, the crunch of sneaker on trail dirt, the inhalation and exhalation of breath, the taste of salty sweat or cold water, the sight of the blue sky and a community of people enjoying themselves. At mile 11 I noticed a biker stop and draw a breath from their inhaler. A sign at this point noted that a riparian habitat restoration was in progress for the elderberry bush and the corresponding elderberry longhorn beetle, a threatened species. Another sign at mile 12.5 noted that the field next to the trail was a testing ground for new ways to remove the invasive yellow star thistle (centaurea solstitialis) and listing the number 456-7423. At mile 13, an Asia-Pacific couple on bikes passed me, and the woman in front exclaimed, Oh, I ate a bug! Her male partner replied, Good, it's protein! I laughed out loud as he passed and he smiled. :) At mile 13.5, another Asia-Pacific family passed me, and the father scooped up a pile of leaves, whooped, and threw it over his head. :) His young children quickly followed suit. I smelled the comforting smell of charcoal smoke as I returned through William B. Pond Park. As I re-crossed the Harold M. Richey Bridge, I passed a small boy raking his stick against the metal slats. As the mid-day turned into afternoon, the number of people on the Parkway dried up. I assumed they left to watch the Super Bowl. Happily, I saw a handful of families enjoying the unseasonably warm February afternoon. I don't remember anything else in particular from the rest of the way back except seeing a satisfied-looking small boy with wet pants legs walking with his parents near mile 20. I finished feeling mentally tired and a bit sore, with a sore back and wanting to sleep. :) Overall, a relatively good run for 20 miles, considering that I planned and kept up a consistent pace, adjusting as needed for my head cold.
Running Time: 279 minutes (4:39), 13:57 pace (6:05 marathon-pace); split 13:55, 139 minutes (2:19), 13:54 pace (6:04 marathon-pace)
Goal Time: 4:30
Distance (running): 32.19 km (20.00 mi)
Total Running Distance For Year: 162.61 km (100.87 mi)
Weight (after run): 78.6 kg (173.31 lbs), 18% body fat
Any irregular feelings, aches, pains, heart rate, and so forth?: sore middle back, legs stiff, mentally quiet second half, kind of phoned it in
Foods eaten today: banana, blueberry bagel, DiGiorno's Garlic, Spinach, and Musroom pizza, Vanilla Crisp and Chocolate PowerBars

Running Journal, Saturday, 2007-02-03

Running Journal, Saturday, 2007-02-03
Resting heart rate: 61 bpm (60-second test, early morning)
Body Mass Index (BMI): (kilograms/(meters^2))
Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR): calories
Weather: n/a
Temp: n/a
Time: n/a
Terrain: flat
Comments: 20 miles tomorrow! Today's an off day. I have a head and throat cold with a runny nose. x_x Getting plenty of rest and drinking four to six ounces of water each hour. Went to the gym this evening with Dawn and sat in the lounge watching Texas A&M defeat Kansas for the first time ever. Congratulations to both teams for a dramatic game. Noticed my weight loss this week and have eaten more today.
Running Time: n/a
Goal Time: n/a
Distance (running): n/a
Total Running Distance For Year: 130.42 km (80.87 mi)
Weight (after run): kg ( lbs), % body fat
Any irregular feelings, aches, pains, heart rate, and so forth?: None
Foods eaten today: toaster waffles with maple syrup, plain fat-free yogurt, banana, ramen noodles with crackers, pumpkin pie, homemade brownie, mushroom-tortellini with mushroom sauce and parmesan, whole wheat bread

Sing along with GDB

While looking for the GNU Debugger (GDB) documentation I found this link to lyrics people have written for it: http://sourceware.org/gdb/song/

The filking of the Bee Gees' 1979 #1 hit Tragedy tickled me. :) Play the video in the background while reading the lyrics. ;)

Gym pet peeves

A stub of a list in case I think of others:

• Not closing locker door (safety issue)
  

Gym Cliques

Have noticed these cliques:

1. Muscle crowd: hoodies, beards, tats
   
2. Cardio crowd
3. Cultural crowd: Speedo trunks, foreign languages
   

Lucerne Plain Fat-Free Yogurt

Disgusting. x_x Very bitter.

Running Journal, Friday, 2007-02-02

Running Journal, Friday, 2007-02-02
Resting heart rate: 60 bpm (60-second test, early morning)
Body Mass Index (BMI): (kilograms/(meters^2)) 23.024
Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR): 1885 calories
Weather: n/a
Temp: n/a
Time: 19:44-20:39
Terrain: flat
Comments: Exercised this evening at California Family Fitness in Orangevale. Watched the end of Law and Order season 16 (!) episode #355, "Birthright," dealing with the topic of sterilization. After that I watched The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and after that the intro to The Colbert Report. 20 miles coming up on Sunday. I'm hoping it goes as well as the 18-mile run two weeks ago.
Running Time: 55 minutes
Goal Time: n/a
Distance (running): 7.38 km (4.58 mi)
Total Running Distance For Year: 130.42 km (80.87 mi)
Weight (after run): 78.8 kg (173.75 lbs), 16% body fat
Any irregular feelings, aches, pains, heart rate, and so forth?: None
Foods eaten today: home-made French toast with maple syrup, soy milk, mini-pizza

Origin of Term Soccer

Dawn and I wondered where the term came from. From Wikipedia:

The game also came to be called "soccer" as a shortening of "Association" around the same time as Rugby football, colloquially referred to as "rugger", was developing as the main carrying of the ball version of English football, and "soccer" remains a common descriptor in countries with other prominent football codes today.

French Humor

Beautiful girl: belle
Beautiful mushroom girl: portobelle

;)

Am I really the first person to come up with this joke? It seems so obvious. Google returns no hits for it though. My claim to fame? Somehow I doubt it. UPDATE: Well, Dire Sraits has a song called Portobello Belle, from their 1979 album "Communiqué," on the Mercury label. Wikipedia says it's about Portobello Road, in an upscale district near West London.

Dawn and I decided to study a foreign language together (Dawn's a trained linguist) so we chose to listen to French tapes in our car (we received them from a friend). Tonight on the way home I realized that the numbers higher than 70 follow a different pattern:

Notes:

The French numbers 0 through 19 are easy enough, right?

For 20 through 69, counting is almost just like in English: the tens word (vingt, trente, quarante, etc.) followed by the ones word (un, deux, trois). The only difference is that for 21, 31, etc., the word et is introduced between the tens word and one: vingt-et-un, trente-et-un, quarante-et-un, etc.

70 to 79 is trickier. In French, 70 is soixante-dix, literally "sixty-ten." 71 is soixante et onze (sixty and eleven), 72 is soixante-douze (sixty-twelve), and so on, up to 79.

80 is quatre-vingts, literally four-twenties (think "four-score"). 81 is quatre-vingt-un (four-twenty-one), 82 is quatre-vingt-deux (four-twenty-two), and so on, all the way up to ninety. 90 is quatre-vingt-dix (four-twenty-ten), 91 is quatre-vingt-onze (four-twenty-eleven), etc.

Fun.

Sacramento County Adopt-A-Street Program

I noticed this sign for the first time on the way to ARC on Thursday. They have a web site.

Anarchist Sewing Circle?

Dawn and I noticed what seemed to be an Anarchist decal on the rear window of a car in the lane to our left a few days ago. In addition, it had a sewing needle and thread making up the cross-bar of the letter. I'm curious to know what it might reference. I didn't find the exact decal.

American River College Track Markings

Writing down in case I want to reference them later. Not sure if these hold up to the standards:

• Top of sign reads: 400 meter event color code
  
• Common Finish Line: white rectangle
• 800 m start: green rectangle
• 400 m start: white rectangle
• 800 m relay start: white rectangle
• 1600 m relay start: blue rectangle
• 1600 m relay zones: blue triangle
• 400 m relay zones: yellow triangle
• 800 m relay zones: white triangle
• 200 m start: white rectangle
• 300 m start: white rectangle
• 100 m start: white rectangle
• 110 m start: white rectangle
• 100 m hurdles: yellow rectangle
• 110 m hurdles: blue rectangle
• 400 m hurdles: green rectangle
• 300 m hurdles: white rectangle
• Waterfall starts 10,000 m: white rectangle
• 3,000/5,000 m: white rectangle
• 1,500 m: white rectangle
• 1,600/3,200 m: white rectangle
• 3,000 m steeple: white rectangle

The companies responsible for constructing the track:

• http://californiatrack.com
• http://sportbuild.com

Running Journal, Thursday, 2007-02-01

Running Journal, Thursday, 2007-02-01
Resting heart rate: 69 bpm (60-second test, early morning)
Body Mass Index (BMI): (kilograms/(meters^2)) 23.141
Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR): 1891 calories
Weather: n/a
Temp: n/a
Time: 21:30-22:10
Terrain: flat
Comments: I felt tired all day today. Cycling tonight felt comfortable and I felt strong afterward. The gym seemed deserted. No problems with dizziness in the hot tub or soreness like last night. Tonight I watched a sizable chunk of the new Sci-Fi channel movie Gryphon. The hot tub felt great.
Cycling Time: 40 minutes
Goal Time: n/a
Distance (cycling): 28.97 km (18.00 mi)
Total Running Distance For Year: 123.04 km (76.29 mi)
Weight (after run): 79.2 kg (174.64 lbs), 18% body fat
Any irregular feelings, aches, pains, heart rate, and so forth?: Felt tired all day today. Knees felt a bit weird when I began cycling but after a minute they felt fine.
Foods eaten today: toaster waffles with maple syrup, soy milk, apple, Mr. Pickle's Bugs Bunny sandwich, portobello burger, cinnamon bread, water crackers

Lucky Number

Today's fortune reads:

Your lucky number is 3552664958674928. Watch for it everywhere.

Who knew? ;)

For the record, that's 3 quadrillion, 552 trillion, 664 billion, 958 million, 674 thousand, nine hundred and 20.