Cooking through a rainy weekend

Yesterday was rainy, so our productive time was spent food shopping and cooking. My wife baked a cake and made turkey burgers (to be frozen and used over time). I ground up two chuck roasts to make hamburgers (to freeze) and meatballs (to cook, then freeze).

The problem is that today is also rainy, probably even more so than yesterday and I am sick of cooking but don't want to do anything outside.

Just watch. Monday--when I am stuck inside of an office building, it will be sunny and perfect...

Update: Here it is Sunday evening and the sun, absent the whole weekend, is putting in an appearance.

My Wife ad-libs

At breakfast the other day, I was reading the WSJ and my wife some ladies magazine. She came upon Lance Armstrong's recipe for Guacamole: Said she: "Take ONE avocado..."

dbp, what do you mean by your "true self"?

I was asked the above in another setting and I decided to answer it here because the answer (might) end up being pretty lengthy.

I thought up a little story to illustrate what I meant:

There is some guy, who from childhood had a lot of different aspirations. One of them was to be rich. If you asked him why he wanted to someday be wealthy, he would say that it would be great because then he wouldn't have to work and he could travel or buy anything he wants.

Later in life, he is married with children and a good job. He likes his work--it pays well and is interesting. He lives close to work in a modest house. He enjoys spending time with his family and has a few hobbies, but they are not ones that cost much to pursue. Really, there is only one nagging concern: His current career path will never make him wealthy.

If he was to think about his situation, he would realize that his "true self" is not someone who really wants to be wealthy. His reasons for wanting wealth don't apply: He likes his work and he does not have expensive tastes. All wealth would do is give him the means to buy stuff he doesn't want and allow him to quit job he loves.

He would benefit if he could make this realization, since this one nagging concern is about the only worry he has. But getting back to the original subject of this post: Isn't it possible that his "true self" was there all along? There is a certain amount of randomness in life, but the seeds of interest we have when young guide us toward what we will do later. The life our hero chose for himself reveals what he really cares about.

This is how I roll

In certain respects I kind of like that fuel has become so expensive. It gives me permission to do things I always wanted to do.

Here is what I mean:

Part of my morning routine is to wait at the bus stop with the my two younger daughters and then to drive to work right after the bus comes. The stop is about 4 or 5 hundred yards from our house, so I just drive there rather than walking down and then having to walk back to get my car. I used to let my car idle while waiting for the bus on the theory that it isn't good for the engine to be starting it too often.

First, what I changed was that I turned the car off when I got to the bus stop. Later I realized that it is down hill the whole way from home to bus stop, so why even turn the car on? I just have to remember to leave my car in such a position that it will start to roll once I release the hand brake and turn the steering wheel. So now what I do is turn the key just enough to unlock the steering column and then coast to the bus stop. There are a couple of 90 degree turns and it is a bit of a work-out to do with no power steering. Also, no power brakes; so I have to break early and hard to get the thing to stop.

Maybe by next Winter fuel will be cheap again--it was pretty sweet getting into my car after the bus comes and finding it toasty warm.

Actors, who to me, look and act very much alike

It is probably just me, but there are two pairs of actors who I used to get mixed-up and even now that I know they are different, I still think are pretty similar.

What would be great is if they could be cast all in one movie. So here is the outline... Joey Lauren Adams (Chasing Amy) is married to Crispin Glover (Back to the future) and their bosses are their lookalikes: Crispin's boss is played by Renée Zellweger while Ms. Adams' is played by Matthew Modine (Full Metal Jacket & Married to the mob)

Twins, or more commonly, an actor playing duel roles has been done to death. Here, we have similar looking and sounding actors all playing in the same film. The makeup and costume people can make the actors look either more alike or less so, depending on what is needed as part of the story ark.

The plot gets moving when the couple decides to kill three birds with one stone: Invite over the boss for dinner--both of them (who are single) and set them up on a blind date as well. The dinner has lots of dramatic and comedic potential since each half of the married couple can talk shop with their respective boss, plus have inside jokes with each other. The only people left-out are the bosses, but only with respect to each other. Naturally they begin to date and to confide in their subordinate about how things are going. As they date, there is plenty of opportunity for the subordinate to take their boss's side in disputes or the opposite given their knowledge of the bosses personality and for fights and arguments to break-out between the married couple. The script almost writes itself.

The four lead parts do not notice that there is any similarity between them, but there should be 2-6 supporting cast who do notice and enjoy making smart comments about it throughout the film.

Davids are not as fast as other men, on average

At least based upon the one example of the Groton Road Race...

There were 15 Davids in the race, of which I came in 3rd. So I beat 12 and two beat me, giving a ratio of 12/2, which reduces to 6. Of the non-David men, I beat 167 and lost to 48, giving a ratio of only 3.5.

I would have to do a lot more research to find out first: Is this just a fluke and if I looked at other races this pattern would go away. (My guess is that it is not a fluke--15 is a pretty good number to work with in terms of statistics like this) And second, if it is not a fluke my working hypothesis would be that David is a name which was more popular long-enough ago that the participants as a whole are younger than the average David's age.

Now that I have looked at the data some more, I don't think the age hypothesis holds-up. At first it looked as if the idea was good: All of the Davids are aged between 36 and 60--which seems like the members are not so much old as lacking in any young members of the David club. The slowest five are: 54, 37, 50, 39 and 36; while the fastest five are 42, 45, 45, 39, and 60.

What really made me discount the age hypothesis was that my assumption about the relationship between age and speed is incorrect. I figured younger=faster, but look at this:

48 men in their 30's ran with a median time of 52:06

97 men in their 40's ran with a median time of 48:50

37 men in their 50's ran with a median time of 51:50

*there were only 11 men in their 20's so this didn't seem representative and I didn't include them in this analysis.

The men in their 40's were by far the fastest and largest group, even the men in their 50's were faster than the 30's guys. There were 5 Davids in their 30's--they were the ones dragging down the Davids.

Update: We were a platoon of Davids, not An Army of Davids that's something else.

How to find stuff

This doesn't happen all the time, but often enough that it is worth noting.

Sometimes you know that certain information is posted on the web, but there is no link to it. What you can do is modify an existing link and this will work sometimes.

In this case, The Groton Road Race site has links to results from 2003-2007 and I want this year's results.

Here is the URL for the 2007 results: http://www.coolrunning.com/results/07/ma/Apr29_Groton_set4.shtml Link

So what I did was change the URL to this: http://www.coolrunning.com/results/08/ma/Apr27_Groton_set4.shtml Link

I changed the 07 to an 08 and the Apr29 to Apr27.

The same kind of thing works for the race pictures, but I shall leave that as an exercise for those of my 6 readers who are interested. You can also find the pictures from the link at the bottom of the previous post.

Have I hit a plateau?

The Groton Road Race results are available now, so I have been looking at them and at past results too.

Here is how I have done over the past few years:

2003---51:14 8:16 185th out of 448 median time: 52:47

2004---Didn't run

2005---49:30 7:59 133rd out of 418 median time: 52:34

2006---46:31 7:31 103rd out of 446 median time: 53:03

2007---44:41 7:12 326 out of 912 median time: 48:37

The median time this year was really fast because Groton was chosen as the location for the championchip race for New England and thus attracted a higher caliber of runners.

2008---44:34 7:11 57th out of 371 median time: 53:24

Most years I enjoyed a minute or two gain from year-to-year. This time I did better by only a paltry 7 seconds. Now admittedly, I didn't push as hard this year as last, but this should be more than made up by the better conditions this year: It was cool and there were far fewer runners--so that should have helped.

2009---45:45 7:22 46th out of 435 median time: 58:05

It was unseasonably hot this year and this slowed runners down by 4-5 minutes.

Photos by Jim Rhoades The Runner

ADDED:
2010: did not run
2011: 52 44:47 7:13 44/284 M 22/104 Median: 55:06
2012: 66 44:14 7:08 62/254 M 20/69 Median: 53:42
2013: did not run
2014: 46 44:23 7:09 39/202 M 8/50 Median: 54:56
2015: 40 44:44 7:12 35/190 M 6/48 Median: 55:36
2016: 38 44:30 7:10 30/197 M 4/55 Median: 54:46
2017: 80 48:55 7:53 54/194 M 22/59 Median: 57:12

Pictures from 2016 race: 1/2 mile from the finish.

About 1/2 mile in--the tall guy next to me wearing white runs the Grand Prix, so we have gotten to know each other. He always beats me but I can keep up for about a mile.

Meenah running after the ball

To the Races...

I am off to the Groton Road Race. Normally, the whole family would come to cheer me on, but today is chilly and rainy, so I will go alone.

This is perfect weather for racing, but not so good for spectators.

I don't feel as well-trained as last year, I will know in about 2 hours and 45 minutes from now.

UPDATE: I was overly optimistic about finding out that quickly. Oh I know from looking at the timer above the finish that I did roughly the same as last year, but they haven't posted (on their website) the official results yet--and the race finished like 8 hours ago...What is weirder is that they posted the results on paper at the event just as I was leaving. I saw the results but didn't bother to memorize them since I thought they would be on-line by the time I got home.

2nd Update: Cool running had the results! 57 340 DAVID PECCHIA 45 M 24/97 M4049 CHELMSFORD MA 44:34 7:11

Seven seconds faster than last year. Not much of an improvement but at my age I will settle for not doing worse!

Finding stuff...

Yesterday, we got to the ISGM early--it opens at 11:00 AM. So we went across the street to the Fens and administered a snack to the girls.

As usual, Dahlia found coins on the ground--a penny and a nickel. Then Surenna found a dime and Jemma "found" a quarter; there is some suspicion that the quarter was planted for her to find it. If you know Jemma, a quarter is but a small price to pay to avoid the Götterdämmerung which would have taken place had she been the only sister to not find something.

Then I found something! The thing was glinting in the grass in arm's reach. I never thought it was a coin, due to the shape, I thought it might be a keyring. I got the ring part correct. It is a silver ring that says "Hope" on it. It looks like white gold or possibly tin, it doesn't have the tarnished look of actual silver.

I wore it on my little finger all day and then offered it to my wife on the drive home. She seems to like it, but in the past any jewelry that isn't gold eventually gives her a rash. Maybe her skin will tell us what metal the ring is made from.

A constant buzzing can be heard...

A lot of buzzing can be heard from over there...

Look a little closer...

There she is! An Italian Honey-Bee. (Apis mellifera ligustica)

When did we plant these? Hope they are pretty!

I recognise these as tulips, but neither my wife nor I remember planting these--or where we got the bulbs.

These are nice.

A normal Saturday

For the first time in this four day weekend, we have not done a family outing. It is kind of a relief to just take care of little odds-and-ends errand wise.

I did the long-overdue changing of the oil on my car. This is normally not too difficult to do, but BMW has some really unnecessary complications. Most cars use an oil filter which is an all-in-one unit; sheet metal housing containing the filter element. With this car, the housing is reused. So, if it is tough getting it unscrewed you can't just put a screwdriver through it for extra leverage like you can with a disposable housing. The housing is set low in the engine bay and is surrounded by stuff on all sides, so a normal oil filter wrench is difficult to get in there. I have purchased several sockets--all of which come close to fitting but don't fit well enough. Once you get the housing off, you just drop in the new element and then change the three oily 0-rings inside the housing.

I have changed oil on normal cars and not gotten a drop of oil on myself or the ground, but that is just not possible with this car.

I also changed all three windshield wipers and rainexed the front an back window.

Fresh windshield wipers--ready for the next rain.

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Today we put Meenah into doggy daycare and went to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

There is a lot of interesting things about the place...here are a few.

Great art like these two painings...

They are from different eras, but each brilliant in its own way.

The galleries surround an enclosed garden full of color, the smells of living plants and flowers. Most of the surrounding galleries have balconies overlooking the gardens.

The paintings famously stolen in 1990 still have empty frames in the places where masterpieces were once displayed.

Fish and Chips

They get along well together on a plate or in a pond:

The kids are off from school this week, so my wife and I took a couple of days-off so that we could have some outings.

We did a long walk at Minuteman Park in Lexington and then came home, dropped-off Meenah and went back out for some lunch. We ate on the outside deck of a seafood place and the deck overlooked a pond.

Jemma noticed that there are fish in the pond--lots of 1 foot long ones which the waitress thought might be "rainbow fish" After our meal, I thought I would see if the fish liked any scraps from my plate, so I threw-in a shrimp tail. The fish all swarmed to it but none of them gobbled it up. Emboldened by the initial experiment, I threw in a small piece of french fry; they all swarmed around and one fish swallowed it whole. It was a veritable feeding frenzy as all three girls broke apart their leftover fries and fed the fish.

I wondered to my wife what sort of natural selection it was which make fish chase after fried potato?

Sometimes the assumptions made are really correct

In the Democratic primary race, Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton are essentially tied in terms of how many votes each has gotten. In various sub-populations their support is quite variable: Among African-Americans, Obama has been getting 90% and among white women, Clinton is getting 2/3 of their vote.

The assumption the press seems to be making is that Democratic voters are following racial and gender lines when deciding who to vote for. Well, not all of them are: We can reasonably expect each candidate to get 50%, since on average that is what they are getting. However far the total skews from that can be attributed to "identity" voting. So, in Obama's case he gets 90% of the AA vote. So, 40 of his percentage points are coming from people voting along racial lines.

I expect this is nothing new: For instance, who would be surprised if JFK got higher percentages among Irish and Catholics, then he would have had he not been an Irish Catholic?

Mostly wrong, but there is something to it

We have all heard the quote from Senator Obama and read a ton about it:

"...So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion..."

Maybe I can add a smidgen more: Mostly I think he is just wrong and fairly condescending as well.

First, the "they cling" makes a strong implication that it is just a matter of time before these rubes come to their senses and realize that religion and guns are bad bad bad. I won't argue this here (though I could and maybe will sometime) but it seems pretty obvious that society is strengthened by the practice of religion and by the private ownership (by the law-abiding) of fire arms.

Second, even if guns and religion were bad and people only cling to them because of their bad economic condition--it is still poor form to point this out. (Although in fairness, Obama made this statement in front of floofy S.F Democratic poobahs and panjandrums--not blue-collar Pennsylvanians.) The statement doesn't take on these "wrong beliefs" on their own terms; as if these folks have no rational or logical explanation for what they hold dear!

Well, like I said: There is a kernel of truth to it though. Who among us has not noticed that the underclass do have some odd tendencies? Like, how come people who must have absolutely nothing anybody would want to steal always seem to have vicious dogs? Even here, there may be an explanation: Maybe people who have some wealth are afraid to own such a dog because if it bites someone they will get sued and loose everything. The poor have no wealth to sue away. The lack of one disincentive doesn't explain it all though.--There are still piercings and tatoos to contend with...

Time is on her side...

Yesterday I went for a jog with Surenna. She wasn't very fast and we didn't go very far. She is closer to 1/3 my size than 1/2 and hasn't done much running. She will get better with time, I will get slower. She will eventually be faster than I, which means that at some point our abilities will be the same.

Soccer Dog

Meenah loves to chase after the soccer ball, but she won't touch it. So, what does that make her? An over-enthusiastic fan or an unagressive player?

It is great exercise for the dog and little trouble for us: We kick the ball up the hill--and she chases it up. Then the ball rolls back and she chases it back. The only hard part is that Meenah often stands in the way and we have to be careful not to hit her with the ball. Her reaction times are pretty quick though: I have seen her jump-over low fast hits and duck under low flying balls.