I guess they never took a philosophy course...

Yesterday I was in the waiting area while the J was doing jazz dance and I overheard some women talking.

One was helping her son with his homework and screeched, "What kind of question is this? If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Of course it makes a sound!" The lady across from her, who explained that she was a HS chemistry teacher, was in full agreement. I was aghast.

Such sloppy thinking. Before jumping to conclusions they should have wondered about definitions. If sound is defined as vibrations in the air, then yes, it will make sound. If sound is defined as a person having a sensation caused by vibrations in the air, then it is nonsense to say there is sound. Put it another way: If I showed you a nice fresh strawberry and asked, "What does this taste like?" You would probably say, "like a strawberry". But it only tastes like a strawberry while you are eating it, it doesn't taste like anything when it is sitting in a bowl.

There is a lot more to think about with that question such as the whole mind/body issue & etc. Really the issue is that it should be assumed that a question like the falling tree one is meant to provoke thought. To dismiss it out-of-hand is to miss the point and to show yourself a rube--to anyone who isn't--Or in my case, at least is slightly less of one.

Added: In this Family Guy episode, Peter has a vision where the trees are talking to him; so he asks them if they make a sound if they fall down and nobody is around to hear. One of them answers that Steve fell down last week and hasn't shut-up about it since. I don't remember the exact quote and that is why I didn't use quotation marks above.

Random chance plays a big role in the acting biz

My wife and I have watched a couple of episodes of a new show called Fringe. It is sort of x-filesish and the creators seem to think that "Fringe" is a branch of science like biology and physics, so it has problems that may be tough to overcome.

What is kind of sad is that there is really a lot of talent which may not be rewarded if the show fails. It happens all the time, a show dies due to weak performances by the main stars, or poor writing while there are great performances by side characters.

I have really noticed the actress Jasika Nicole. She is an FBI agent, but so far they just have her acting like a lab assistant. This is too bad: She has incredible presence and I would love for her role to expand in an unexpected way. Maybe she and the son of the mad-scientist could get together. It would be a nice change from the two leading parts becoming involved and would open-up whole new areas for plots.

btw. I noticed when "researching" this that Jasika Nicole has a website and some pretty nice art that she has done.

Last LSD until the race

It was 20.6 miles done at a pace of about 8:33 and I have to say it felt much slower.

I left home under overcast skies and it was warm so I wouldn't have worn my raincoat even if I hadn't forgotten it at work. Two miles out it began to rain gently and kept it up for the next 10 miles. I lost some time because my wet t-shirt was irritating me and so I took it off and carried it. I have a million of these, so I should have just thrown it away--even though I wrung it out, it was still pretty heavy and prevented me from swinging whichever arm was holding it. Also, I waited a couple of minutes at two different busy intersections--I didn't deduct this time since in theory the rest it gave me allowed for a faster pace just after the wait.

I should be starting to taper and so today's workout is the last really long distance till the race.

Her posts are really good, but sometimes the commenters surpass

Paul Zrimsek said... "When the stock market crashed in 1929, Tyrannosaurus Rex didn't go on television and talk about the princes of greed. No, he went to Wall Street and ate the princes of greed." -- Joe Biden

From this post

Bluefish

A coworker went fishing and gave me this bluefish and another smaller one. It was delicious but a very hectic evening: I get home from work around 7:30 and I had to get the whole fish processed before cooking (the small part of it we had that night).

I cut it all into steaks and the spine was really tough to get through. I had to use chicken shears to cut through it.

It was a monster!

Surenna is so cute.

She IM'ed me after I left work yesterday:

rushgirl says: omg

rushgirl says: you got a picture of mccain and palin that had their signatures on them

rushgirl says: and it had YOUR name on it.

rushgirl says: it said to david b pecchia

rushgirl says: thankyou for your support and commitment to our party and candidates!!

rushgirl says: you are so lucky!!

rushgirl says: are you there or what?

A quote

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.

--Nietzsche

Sunday marathon training run

There are three kinds of work-outs in the Furman 3-days per week training plan: Long slow distance (LSD), a tempo run of 6-8 miles at a pace faster than marathon goal pace and then an interval run--which is sprints designed to increase speed. My last hard workout was last Thursday when I ran 18 miles slowly. I didn't want to do another LSD today, but I did want a hard workout, so what I decided to do was run 10 miles with sprints built-in and yet try and keep a tempo of marathon goal pace (8 minutes/mile).

I thought from past running that today's course was 10 miles even, so the whole way I figured I was a couple of minutes slow. Once home, I mapped it out and it was 10.32 which I did in 1:22:47. This translates to pretty much 8 min/mile almost exactly. The only real concern is that I had to push pretty hard to make that pace and a marathon is more than twice as far. Of course the sprints took a lot out of me and I will most certainly not be doing that on race day.

Update: Monday 4.25 miles in 32:47

Update: Tuesday 4.25 miles in 32:04

Fair is fair...

I have given Sen. Joe Biden grief for all the stupid things he says, but sometimes he knows what he is talking about...

Biden: (video from Sept. 21, Castlewood, Va): I guarantee ya, Barack Obama ain’t taking my shotguns, so don’t buy that malarkey, don’t buy that malarkey. They’re going to start peddling that to you. I got two! If he tries to fool with my Beretta he’s got a problem. Stewart (after pausing incredulously): Two things. Uh. One, the Beretta, I believe, is a handgun. Not, not a shotgun.

Actually Jon, Barretta is a big maker of shotguns...They are not exactly blue-collar guns though. The cheapest ones are around a couple thou.

Just as a hint to Jon Stewart and any other know-it-alls: People normally know quite a lot about their own stuff. I mean, if I plopped-down $2,000 for a scatter-gun, you can rest assured I would know who made it! Once the wife of my ex-uncle (don't ask) was convinced that my 1983 Toyota Tercel was rear-wheel drive, even after I told her it wasn't. I had the thing for a few years at the time, so even if I didn't know at the time of purchase, I would certainly have figured it out at some point eh? I mean when you floor it on a dirt road and dust flies up from the front wheels, that is a big clue...and when your expensive shotgun says Barretta on it that is a big clue too.

Marathon training run for today.

I took my time on this one (2 hours 43 minutes) for of a couple of reasons: First, I had been having trouble going much beyond 13 miles when I ran fast and I wanted to be able to put a much longer run under my belt. Second, I was kind of lost until I hit Rt. 40 (about 7.5 miles in) and wanted to conserve energy.

I feel good about the run today because I had the energy to have gone further--possibly another 8 miles, which would have been a complete marathon. All this without any hydration along the way. I know this pushes the limits since I was 4-5 lbs lighter at the end than at the beginning, but I felt relatively okay.

Update: A little 3.5 mile run today puts me over the 50 mile mark for the week.

Marathon advice links--in case I can't find them again.

I don't want to bookmark these links since I will probably never use them again, or it will be so long that they won't work by then. For tapering before the big day:TAPERING FOR A MARATHON

Boston Marathon qualifying times by age.

The Bay State Marathon--The one I am running October 19th

Training 3 days per week--I do 6 days per week but try and incorporate the philosophy of the Furman Institute...

So, why exactly should I trust your judgement?

I was listening to On Point with Tom Ashbrook and he had a guest on who I thought would be interesting: Philosopher Susan Neiman who was going to talk about moral clarity, which she has written a book about.

I kind of expected her to be left of center and my expectations were quickly confirmed when she claimed that due to Iraq, U.S. standing was low throughout the world. Okay fine, it is debatable, let's give her more of a chance. Almost the next sentence was that Bush lied us into this war...Eh, I will be listening to music the rest of the drive home.

There are four formal possibilities concerning WMD at the point in time when Bush claimed Iraq had them:

1. They had all been destroyed in the sanctions regime from the first gulf war.

2. They had WMD but since then they were moved out of the country--like to Syria and are still there now.

3. Or were destroyed since then.

4. Or are hidden in Iraq and not yet found.

I have yet to see any evidence that option one is true AND that President Bush alone knew this. Quite the contrary: When there were a dozen good reasons for invasion, why emphasise the one that he knew was untrue? Why would the one guy smart enough to know Saddam got rid of his WMD (Bush), play-up the WMD threat?

Okay, I don't want this post to end up being a rehash of old arguments, my point is a larger one.

Liberals tell each other that Bush lied. It is objectively untrue that he lied. Everyone they know is in full agreement that Bush lied. Are they lying at this point? No. Not really. It has become conventional wisdom for them. They believe it and have full confidence that what they are claiming is the truth.

Sort of like how everybody thought Iraq had WMD before the war. Eh?

But there are some notable differences between the two cases. First, maybe 50% of people believe that Bush lied, while at most 5-10% believed Saddam was truthful about there being no more WMD. Second, it may actually be true that there were WMD at the time leading up to the war, while it is an almost dead certainty that Bush didn't lie.

So, getting back to philosopher Susan Neiman; why should I care what she has to say? It would be like if a paleontologist came on the radio and started out by saying, "...and as we all know Tom, back when humans hunted T-Rex with spears..."

The up-side of the Biden pick...

There is a formal chance that he could one day become president. The chances of this are low, the chance of comedy gold--pretty much certain!

When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the princes of greed," Biden told Couric. "He said, 'Look, here's what happened.'

Hoover was president when the market crashed in 1929 and television was still in the experimental mode, otherwise great example Joe.

Trail run

Update 1. The course above is probably a mile or two longer than listed due to my not being able to accurately map trails. One way I know this is that I overtook an older woman between mile 8 and 9 and then 4 miles later met her going in the opposite direction. I was going much faster than her and yet the shortest route for her to have taken would have been around 3.5 miles.

Update 2. Affy loop, 5.2 miles. 39:37

Update 3. Bedford 4.25 31:01

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.

A day of odds and ends

--We all got up early on this Saturday because we wanted to have breakfast together and the new car was scheduled for FREE! routine service this morning at 8:00AM

--Surenna wanted help with uploading videos to her blog. In the past we would upload to YouTube and then embed from there, but recently Blogger has added a tab for directly embedding. But, Safari doesn't have that tab. So, I installed Firefox on her Mac and as you can see from her blog, if you go there, she has been embedding video non-stop.

--Vaishali had promised Surenna a trip to the mall as a reward for doing Summer academic work, the other two girls wanted to play at grandparent's house and I needed insulation for the attic--I was up there a few weeks back and was appalled at how little insulation there was. So, I figured on taking the truck: Drop the two girls off at grandparent's, drop mom and daughter at mall, pick-up insulation and then retrieve the shoppers and head home. Eh, didn't work out that way.

I was in the Home Depot insulation section and they had rolls of R30 packaged in 6-roll bales. Each roll had a little more than 30 square feet of coverage, so I figured one bale would do around 200 square feet. While I was figuring out how much I needed, I noticed a guy there with his teen-aged son--also looking at attic insulation. He was cutting open bales to get at the individual rolls and asked if I wanted him to cut open some for me. I replied that the bales seemed like a nice neat and compact packaging solution as they were. He seemed incredulous that I would need a whole bale! And started out instructing me on how to measure area--take the length of your attic and multiply by the width...Yes, I know! Each bale of 6 rolls only does 200 square foot, so I will need 4 or 5 bales.

The guy continued cutting open bales and ended up cutting into the roll packaging, leaving greatly expanded bats of fiberglass swelling around the openings. I don't think he ended up buying anything. I stacked 4 bales onto a dolly. Another guy, this one not a clown, helped me lift the 4th one to the top of the stack. These 4 bales filled our Yukon XL! There is about 3 feet behind the 3rd row seat and I had to put down the 3rd row AND 2nd row seats to fit it all in. I couldn't bring the ladies home from the mall unless Surenna sat on her mom's lap. They didn't want to do that and agreed to the great hardship of staying at the mall for an extra hour of shopping while I ran the truck home and came back in another car.

--Once home the girls took the dog for a long walk while I mowed the lawn.

--Grandparents brought home the girls and stayed for dinner along with a relative who comes out from Brookline on weekends sometimes to visit.

--Vaishali made Chicken Tikka Masala, Aloo Ghobi, Tandoori Chicken and a few other things. I played Scrabble with her parents.

--Next, real soon, brownies made by Surenna. Yum!