Hopefully it is not one of those things where I end up encased in concrete at the bottom of a lake.
Update: I am safe and sound. She just took me to a place in Groton we have been wanting to try. I had the 24oz porterhouse.
My wife and two of my daughters are in the background of this finish line shot.
the guy with the gold shirt beat me by 4 minutes and so this picture should be from somewhere around mile 20-24.
At about the 1/2 way point on the Rourke Bridge.
And now more numbers, because I like numbers and their possible meanings...
In the latest race, I came in 10th among the 32 "Davids" entered, 289th out of 1193 overall, and 4th among the 20 Chelmsfordians. If you look at the ratios, I did best v. my fellow townspeople, then among all entrants and worst against Davids. Here is my hypothesis: Chelmsford is one of the three towns the race went through and so this race is very convenient for us. Maybe this caused people who are not as serious about running to give it a try.
As for the fact I did worse among Davids than overall: Davids are all men and men are faster (on average) than women. Only 42 of the 289 who beat me were women, although if they were a small percentage of the total entrants, this wouldn't suggest anything. If only 22% of the entrants were women and 22% beat me, then it would show that they are as fast as the men on average.
I don't want to go through the whole 1193 and count the number of women, but if they are slower, maybe they will be a higher percentage of the last 289 finishers...(A pause while I look at the results)...152 of the last 289 were women.
By Mark Steyn
Supposedly, under the Obama tax plan, 95 per cent of the American people will get a tax cut. You’d think that at this point the natural skepticism of any sentient being other than six-week-old puppies might kick in, but apparently not. If you’re wondering why Obama didn’t simply announce that under his plan 112 per cent of the American people will get a tax cut, well, they ran it past the focus groups who said that that was all very generous but they’d really like it if he could find a way to stick it to Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, Karl Rove and whatnot. So 95 per cent it is.
Should you read it all? Yes.
The key to all these numbers: 289 was my overall place out of 1189 who finished, 89/250 was my place among the guys in the 40-49 age bracket.
The 3:24 is the net time and the 3:25 is the start time: The chip system deducts the time it takes you to cross the start line from the total time.
The asterisk means that I qualified for the Boston Marathon. (Ask me later how I feel about that.) It was my formal goal for this race, but the idea of running a marathon is not really attractive right now.
The race went pretty much according to my plans. I have noticed from training runs that I really fade after 13-16 miles. So what I wanted to do was to run fast for the first 13 miles and get myself ahead of my 8 min/mile schedule. I was around 3 minutes ahead at 6, then 5 minutes ahead at 10 and about 10 minutes ahead by 16 miles. At this point I figured I had it in the bag: I had 10 miles to go and could do it at a 9 minute pace and still make 3:30. At 18 miles, nature showed she still had some trump cards. My left calf started to cramp. If you have ever had a leg cramp, you know that all talk of maintaining 9 minute miles is out, along with running at all, or even walking. The cramp never did develop but my legs felt like one mass of pulled and sore muscle. My pace deteriorated from there. I lost 5 minutes in the last 8 miles and would bet that half of that loss was in the last 2 miles.
Here and there, we would see runners: They had white and blue race packet bags and were all skinny bony types. This caused me a little panic since I am neither skinny nor bony. I am not as young as these people looked either.
| Name | Office | State | Party | Grand Total | Total from PACs | Total from Individuals |
| Dodd, Christopher J | S | CT | D | $165,400 | $48,500 | $116,900 |
| Obama, Barack | S | IL | D | $126,349 | $6,000 | $120,349 |
| Kerry, John | S | MA | D | $111,000 | $2,000 | $109,000 |
| Bennett, Robert F | S | UT | R | $107,999 | $71,499 | $36,500 |
| Bachus, Spencer | H | AL | R | $103,300 | $70,500 | $32,800 |
| Blunt, Roy | H | MO | R | $96,950 | $78,500 | $18,450 |
| Kanjorski, Paul E | H | PA | D | $96,000 | $57,500 | $38,500 |
| Bond, Christopher S 'Kit' | S | MO | R | $95,400 | $64,000 | $31,400 |
| Shelby, Richard C | S | AL | R | $80,000 | $23,000 | $57,000 |
| Reed, Jack | S | RI | D | $78,250 | $43,500 | $34,750 |
| Reid, Harry | S | NV | D | $77,000 | $60,500 | $16,500 |
| Clinton, Hillary | S | NY | D | $76,050 | $8,000 | $68,050 |
And way down the list...
| McCain, John | S | AZ | R | $21,550 | $0 | $21,550 |
And McCain has been in the Senate for around 20 years to Obama's 2. Source
Added note: McCain is only a couple of points behind Obama even though he has been outspent 2 to 1.
I didn't know the answer yet, but figured that given what we know about the moon we should be able to figure out if it was getting fuller or less full. (Waxing or Waning, I know) I tried to picture the above sketch in my head and got the answer exactly backwards: Now that I have the sketch (and assuming I am right that the moon orbits from West to East) the Moon should be growing if it rises between sunrise and sunset.
Now I will go check the Internet tubes to see if the Moon is waxing...
Hmmn. It is full tonight and it wasn't full on last Saturday, so I guess I got it right.
Meanwhile, the kids are off from school today since, as we all know, public school teachers are such huge fans of Columbus. Their minds are so full of admiration for the bravery and intellect of the great Italian explorer, they couldn't be expected to concentrate on mundane math, reading & etc. Best to just keep them home today.
Photo from here
I think the problem has more causes than what this video presents, but it is right as far as it goes. Other issues were the trade imbalance with China. They had to put their $'s somewhere and they put them into US financial markets, which depressed interest rates and drove up property values. Also, who doesn't know at least one person who used their home appreciation as a piggy-bank?
Michael_H said... I developed an odd habit during this past summer. I am a motorcycle rider who enjoys taking off a few weeks now and then and logging 3,000-5,000 miles.I began wearing foam earplugs under my helmet this summer on the advice of my physician, in order to reduce the noise that leads to hearing loss.
I have come to enjoy the quiet that comes from wearing earplugs. Weird, eh? Wearing them makes the ride very quiet, with only a little engine, road and wind noise intruding. Over a few months I began keeping them in after each ride ended,and wearing them while mowing the lawn as well.
After that, I began wearing them when I went shopping in a mall. And quite a few other places as well, but never when out in the wilderness.
The strange part is, I've come to enjoy the quiet. I can hear my own footfalls; my own breathing. I can pretend to not hear people who want my attention.
My wife is in on it, and now she sometimes wears her earplugs when we are out shopping. It feels like we are aliens from another planet, quietly making our way unnoticed among earthlings.
A nice young woman at a Barnes and Noble noticed and asked whether we needed a signer. I said "no, we learned to read lips a long time ago. At Galluadet.
"When we got to our car, laughing, my wife said "read my lips: I'm an alien from the planet of the horny women".
Welcome to the quiet world!
This morning I was opening Dahlia's room curtains and she looked at the spot where the unit was; her expression showed the thought forming in her head, "Oh, thanks for taking out the air conditioner". She has always been the observant one.
Let's see how soon the others notice...
That reminds me: I need to take my in-laws units out.
Also, my wife does read this thing sometimes but my bet is she notices the A/C missing before she reads this.
This is a classic vicious cycle: The voters (being dumb on average) go for the new guy when the market is down. Shareholders (being smart on average) see that the Senator is gaining popularity and know that Obama's policies will likely hurt the economy. So they try to get out of the market and stock prices go down.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Update: Just saw that the Club for Growth had the same idea--and better charting.
Update 2: Maybe electing The One will help...
Today I did the 10.3 miles in 78 1/2 minutes, for a pace of 7:37/mile. That is more or less perfect and I hope to do exactly that on the 19th.
The pleasure of wood heat was in the contrasts: The house was very warm because it was small and easy to heat and the fuel was effectively unlimited. Yet, I made and hauled firewood when it was cold out. I would spend my time at hard labor in bitter cold or relaxing in a warm house. After handing the loud, hard and heavy tools of firewood making, I would come inside and play with my small, delicate, soft and cute little girls. They seemed even more delicate and soft after smashing apart great wheels of oak and maple with my axe.
My wife was out walking Meenah and met some folks along the way. They live in a cape, much like the one we had in Vermont and they even had wood stoves in it. They had the stoves removed because they have small children! Ack! Our kids never showed any impulse to touch the hot stove, probably because it got pretty uncomfortable to get close enough to touch it when it was running. But had it been a problem we could have used a really sophisticated technique to assure safety: Not use it! I just can't believe sane people would rip out two perfectly good wood stoves!
By DOUGLASS K. DANIEL, Associated Press Writer Sun Oct 5, 10:43 AM ET WASHINGTON - By claiming that Democrat Barack Obama is "palling around with terrorists" and doesn't see the U.S. like other Americans, vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin targeted key goals for a faltering campaign. And though she may have scored a political hit each time, her attack was unsubstantiated and carried a racially tinged subtext that John McCain himself may come to regret.And what pray is the racial subtext in associating Obama with a couple of white domestic terrorists? Oh, you didn't know who Gov. Palin meant? She meant Bernardine Rae Dohrn and William Ayers. Founders of the domestic terror group Weather Underground and in who's living room, Sen. Obama began his political career.
But Sarah Palin is racist because she knows that "terrorist" conjures-up images of swarthy Arabs right? Well, maybe if the AP had done its job, we would all know about Ayers/Dohrn and know who Gov. Palin meant.
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