New Marathon training route

It says it is 15.5 miles, but I suspect it is actually further since I had to guess at the route through the woods--you cannot see the path on the map. I know from timing myself that my road pace is around 8 minutes per mile and while I spend more than 12 minutes in the first section of woods, the mapping gives me less than one mile: It is probably more like 1.5 miles. Similar analysis of the second wooded path indicates it is short by 1/4 to 1/3 mile. All these errors taken together probably push today's route to just shy of 17 miles. Maybe next time I will keep it all on the roads to make it easier to measure.

28 year-old training route.

The below route is the one and only long distance training run I did in preparation for the 1980 Seattle Marathon..

I would start from my school (just up the road) once mid-week and then do the route once per weekend starting from home. That makes two of my 6 weekly runs, two more were short slow recovery runs and then two more mid-distance regular pace runs.

Now that I am about to try a marathon again, I need to put in at least one run per week of this kind of distance. Ack! That's a long way!

The Prophet and the Country

I read a lot in different forms, but when reading a book it is usually a novel. I keep a few books of short stories around for when I am all out of novels (that I want to read).

Lately I have been ploughing through Kipling's Debits and Credits. Some of the stories have been entertaining, some incomprehensible but the latest struck a chord with me.

The bulk of the story is an American in the English countryside describing his views on prohibition. In a nutshell, he thinks it will weaken the national character and the nation destroyed--much like the way native Americans were destroyed by European vices (and germs).

I will indulge in only a small bit of literary criticism and then move on to my larger point.

The two men are together for the night because the Englishman's car broke-down due to a faulty magneto, which if memory serves is described as two inches of finest steel. It is described this way at least twice: Once at the time his car breaks down and then again at the end, after listening to the American all night long. I think what Kipling is trying to say is that a big, powerful thing can become totally useless if one very important part goes bad. The part I don't get is whether he is warning America that we risk our country by weakening our moral fiber with nannying laws. Or maybe he is commenting on the American, who due to his wife's death, or possibly his exile from his home,-has some part of himself broken.

What really interested me was that both sides in debates like prohibition have the same goal: They want their nation to be strong. That alcohol causes harm in the form of lives wasted can not be ignored. But do we not weaken all who can learn self-control by taking such decision making out of their hands? This is on top of the utility of preventing the vast majority from a slightly beneficial enjoyment, all to protect a few abusers from themselves.

History repeats itself--Except when it doesn't

Marx is supposed to have said:

“Hegel remarks somewhere that all great, world-historical facts and personages occur, as it were, twice. He has forgotten to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.”

It would be neat to try and force the selection of two women as running-mate for the U.S. Presidency. It just doesn't work though. Each selection made sense at the time, but for different reasons. In the first case, Mondale had no realistic chance of winning against the very popular Reagan--Indeed, the President won every state except Mondale's home state of Minnesota. It made sense to at least make history by his selection of Rep. Ferraro. If there was any "tragedy" it was only in that Rep. Ferraro and Sen. Mondale went back to the relative obscurity from which they came. The present case is similar in that he made a pick which was logical given his situation: He needed someone young and dynamic (a rising star), someone who could shore-up the conservative and evangelical base and it would help if it could be a woman. Gov. Palin fits all of these criteria.

Farce? No. Tragedy? No. Still, history in the making is interesting even if doesn't fit dramatic templates.

Meenah does six.

Now that it is becoming a little cooler and the girl is getting out of her puppyhood, it seems like a good time to see just what she can do. She definitely seemed more tired at the end than normal, but she was in good spirits during the run and would speed up when I did.

Iowahawk strikes gold....again!

The Idiossey The Not-Really-That-Epic Poem of Obamacles (with Apologies to Homer)

Six degrees of separation--Sometimes fewer

There is a big article on the idea here, but I am concerned with the mundane practical applications. The idea is that any two people on the planet can be connected by people they know: For instance, I am one step away from people I know and two steps away from people who are known by people I know. Everyone on the planet is at most 6 steps apart.

There are things about the theory which I am curious about: Do we count as people we know only the ones we are currently in contact with? I must have known on the order of a couple of hundred Marines (on a first-name basis) over the 11 years in that organization, but it has been a long time and currently have only one phone # that I think is valid. Also, when research is done, it must be very difficult for subjects to name every person they know, but even if you could do that you would have to have similar data on each of those people and so on. So what I am getting at is this: If I wanted to say hi to a bushman in the Kalahari, how would I know who to pass the message to first?

This whole line of musing comes from the nomination of Sarah Palin. I looked-up some of her stats when I got the news of her being picked by McCain for VP. She attended the University of Idaho at the same time I was 8 miles away attending Washington State University. At the time, the drinking age was 18 in Idaho and 21 in Washington, so all the college bars were in Moscow and kids from both schools mixed freely.

There is a near-certain connection that I know of. I was pals with a girl who had just graduated from UI when we were working in Sun Valley and she was a Journalism major, just like Sarah Palin! Those two must have met since they had the same major and graduated the same year from the same smallish university. The problem as above with the Marines--I have no idea where she is now. We exchanged the odd letter for a couple of years after we both left Sun Valley and then lost touch.

All Dads Say That...

"Isn't that true"? She said.

"Isn't what true? I didn't really hear what you guys were talking about", I replied.

"My dad here, was just saying that I am the prettiest girl in the world and I was saying that all dads say that about their daughters. Don't you say that about your girls?"

"Oh no, not at all. I tell them that they are not all that pretty, so they better study hard."

It got a good laugh from a very pretty girl, even if it wasn't a totally honest answer.

A Gold Crown

I had a gold crown put in today and two things popped into my mind while I was being worked over: The dental tech had to take out the temp and did so by pulling up on it with a hooked tool. It came out without too much effort or force. It was kind of a surprise since I hadn't done much to favor it in the last two weeks. I guess I just lucked-out in that it never came out while I was on vacation 3,000 miles away.

Before cementing-in the permanent crown, my dentist had to blow some air at the tooth stump to make it dry--I knew it would hurt and so did she, she even warned me. Still, I half expected her to hiss at me, "is it safe"? right after the air-blow (and shock of pain). She is a total sweetheart, but still. wow! That hurt!

A short video of the crater and surrounding area.

MSM criticism, eg shooting fish in a barrel, etc.

CBS4 has learned at least four people are under arrest in connection with a possible plot to kill Barack Obama at his Thursday night acceptance speech in Denver. All are being held on either drug or weapons charges. CBS4 Investigator Brian Maass reported one of the suspects told authorities they were "going to shoot Obama from a high vantage point using a ... rifle … sighted at 750 yards.

This doesn't make any sense: There can't possibly be any point 750 yards away from the podium at the Pepsi center. For instance, The Rose Bowl is less than 300 yards from North to South rim. 750 yards is more than twice that. Doesn't anybody in the press know math, or how big things are?

Update: He will be accepting in Mile High stadium, which has no two line-of-sight points even half 750 yards apart.

Time Bandits

Just in the mood to quote from this very quotable movie...

Evil: God isn't interested in technology. He cares nothing for the microchip or the silicon revolution. Look how he spends his time, forty-three species of parrots! Nipples for men!

Robert: Slugs.

Evil: Slugs! HE created slugs! They can't hear. They can't speak. They can't operate machinery. Are we not in the hands of a lunatic?

and

Evil: When I have the map, I will be free, and the world will be different, because I have understanding.

Robert: Uh, understanding of what, Master?

Evil: Digital watches. And soon I shall have understanding of video cassette recorders and car telephones. And when I have understanding of them, I shall have understanding of computers. And when I have understanding of computers, I shall be the Supreme Being!

It is somewhat hard to be objective about these lines, David Warner gave such an incredible performance that I always hear the words in my head the way he delivered them.

Multnomah Falls

Our friends in Vancouver proposed we go to see Multnomah Falls. I was up for this because you can see them from the freeway and in years' past I had driven by a few times, but never had the time to stop and get a good viewing...

We had a good time there. We are at that stage--kids age wise--that they can all make a 1 mile hike to the top of the falls without much complaint.

Unicycle

A couple of weeks ago my nephews were here and one of them rides the unicycle: He was able to easily ride the thing down our long, steep and narrow driveway. This is something I had never been able to do; although I never really gave it a serious try. My view of it was that I would have to increase my riding skills by a very large amount to have a hope of doing this trick. I never thought it was impossible, just that the effort required was more than I wanted to invest in such an accomplishment.

I gave it a try when my nephew was here, but didn't make it. Now a couple of weeks later we were waiting in the front for BBQ guests to arrive and so I figured I would kill some time by riding the unicycle. I made it down the driveway on the 2nd try!

The thing which makes steep hills hard on a unicycle is that you control the device via three contact points; The seat is one and the two pedals are the other two. If you push sufficiently hard on one pedal, you will lift yourself off the seat and then have no control over the unicycle. This problem could be solved with straps on the pedals--or across the seat, but either of these 'solutions' would result in almost certain injury. One could hold onto the seat when on a steep hill, but this would require a lot of practice since I currently need to wave my arms around, a lot, just to ride on level ground.

Look at all our kids

Actually, the boy next to me is Vijaya and Michael's son Max and the girl next to Vaishali is their daughter Dagney. Their kids are attractive, well behaved and smart.

Ah yes, the puppy is Sunny and at 3 months is full of lootie and energy.

Paradise Inn, outside and inside

Sunrise in the afternoon

Jemma on the monorail

Code Pink

Saturday, the Westlake Center Mall was a noisy place. I think there was either live music or perhaps an air band competition. As we approached the square I noticed activists with folding tables, bright pink t-shirts and signs held aloft. One said U.S. out of Iraq (which seems like a reasonable goal at some point) and another said U.S. out of Iran, which displays either the odd hope that we go in so that we can later go out, or perhaps just a misunderstanding of current affairs.

As I walked by, I gestured to the posters (U.S out of various places) and shouted--had to due to the surrounding noise-- "What about Russia out of Georgia"?

I don't know what I expected, but was pleased that the lady gave me a nod that said, 'yeah, good point'.

Made it to Vancouver to see UVM friends

We drove down from the Seattle area to Vancouver WA safe and sound. We came to see friends who we hung-out with back when we were both newly-wed couples with no children. Now, they have two kids 14 and 7; ours are 11, 8, and 6.

Even though there has been 13 years and lots of changes in our lives, it is still like no time at all has past--personalities seem like one of the constants in the universe.