You're first!

My wife brought up a good point today: Wouldn't it be awful to be a tattoo artist's first client? Any mistakes are going to be permanent.

I wondered aloud if there are such things as "tattoo colleges" that like barber colleges--you can get a haircut at a big discount, but it might not be perfect.

This brought to mind a larger idea I have been having about physical skill and talent. Take something like surgery or dentistry; these people spend years training for their job and they must have at least a reasonable ability in order to graduate. All of the selective pressures leading up to the point where they actually use their hands are academic, but what really matters in the end is their manual abilities. If they don't have much manual ability, they have so much sunk time and expense that they pretty much have to stick to a profession they aren't much good at.

That's funny but what's the real reason?

"Angie and I will consider tying the knot when everyone else in the country who wants to be married is legally able," the 42-year-old actor reveals in Esquire magazine's October issue, on newsstands Sept. 19.

Brad, I believe you, I really do. You have always shown a true commitment to your values, so this is entirely consistent with that. One question though, do you really think Angie will buy your "explanation"?

Here is my theory FWIW, she is a lot smarter than you. She doesn't want to get married either but wants you to think she does.

Yes, this makes sense

I came back from my long run today and felt faint even after drinking around 20 oz of water. I weighed my self and was still around 4 lbs low, so the water I drank had only made a dent. Just for the fun of it I took my blood pressure and it was really low. Something like 109/63 (I can't remember the exact figures). It sort of makes sense in that if you deplete water from the system, the blood will reflect this and be of lower volume--hence the lower pressure.

It also makes sense when you recall that one of the classes of hypertension medicines are diuretics.

I love science in action.

Update: Thu run 4.25 miles in 32:15. I feel much better now.

Update 2: The Bay State Marathon will be having water/gatoraide stations throughout the race so dehydration should not be much of a problem.

Update 3: Friday run 5.5 miles in 42:37

This was better...

My wife had intended to make pasta tonight with Béchamel sauce and Smithfield Ham. As it turned out, time was limited and she needed to go to the middle school open house. So we improvised to save time. Here is the recipe:

Cook 1 lb of linguine according to package directions.

Drain and return to pot, add around 1/2 lb of cubed ham to the pasta and then add the following sauce and mix under moderate heat until it reaches the proper consistency. (So that the noodles are coated with cheese rather than the sauce being a puddle on the bottom of the pan.)

Sauce:

Brown a couple of crushed and chopped cloves of garlic in a teaspoon of olive oil.

Pour in 1 cup of good white wine (Use something you would drink, we used leftover pinot grigio from last night.) As you stir the wine on medium heat, slowly add the grated cheese. We used around 1/3 lb of 4:1 Danish Fontina and Romano.

It was fabulous! and probably had a million calories per bite.

Leisure on Sunday: Tip # 1

Don't fill your truck with building supplies on Saturday if you are in the mood to relax on Sunday.