Jeeze, what happened to me?

After the October race, I determinedly set-about doing a long run once a week to stay in shape for Boston. I ran the same 19 mile course every week and pushed pretty hard the whole way each time.

Now, having run little over the holidays and gained a few pounds, I am out there stinking-up the place. Last week I had to walk the final 4 miles, this week I "ran" the whole thing, but the final 6 miles could have been walked faster than I ran them.

comments elsewhere

Bertrand Russell: via Jac

"When the public cannot understand a picture or a poem, they conclude that it is a bad picture or a bad poem. When they cannot understand the theory of relativity they conclude (rightly) that their education has been insufficient."

There is always the possibility, when one views a picture or reads a poem, that it is actually crap. With science, findings are published in peer reviewed journals and include methods, data and calculations to justify the conclusions. You can review their logic or even repeat their experiments. It makes sense to trust science more than art.

This is not to say that Russell doesn't have a point. It is just that great science should (if things are working correctly) always be recognized. The process holds findings up to objective scrutiny and so it will be accepted or rejected quickly. Great art may not end up being appreciated in its time and this is due to the fundamentally subjective nature of art.

End of vacation, lack of ambition

I did actually work a couple of days in the last two weeks, but it feels like a solid and long vacation. The thing is, that at the start of it you are pumped with energy and want to accomplish as much as you can each precious day. By the end of it, either due to having got every thing done already-or just fatigue, you can spend a whole day doing very little.

For instance: Today.

Pretty much all I did was go and ski/sled/dig in the snow with my daughters in the front yard of our house.

It is time to get back to work. Once time is short again I will come to value it and thus want to squeeze as much out of it as possible.

Catchy tune from a hot young talent

First day of the year--4 full dishwasher loads run

The first load, started around breakfast, shouldn't really count since the machine was pretty full from the night before.

The next load was mostly from early dinner prep: Vaishali made blondies, got a chicken in the oven to roast, set-up but didn't cook some stuffed mushrooms, started to simmer a pot full of marinara sauce with meatballs and some hot Italian sausage and I got a batch of bread dough going.

The third load was mostly dishes from dinner--there were 10 of us, so that is a lot of dishes, cups and dessert plates.

The final load was sent on its way just before bed and had remaining stuff from earlier plus the bowls and so forth associated with pineapple upside down cake. The cake was a last minute save: When I decanted it, it was still uncooked batter on the underside. I figured there would be no risk in putting the uncooked thing (on its metal platter) back into the oven. It firmed-up nicely and tasted pretty good, even though the careful arrangement of pecans, pineapple and cherries was destroyed.

D'Oh! or looking at it on the bright side...

At the new year's party we went to last night, everybody seemed really down on 2008. We didn't talk politics, but I know they are all Democrats so you would think they would be pretty happy.

Mostly the grousing was about 401K accounts loosing tons of value. I was the oldest person there and I am around 30 years away from retirement, so these accounts have lots of time to recover their value. In the mean-time, all money being put in is buying stocks at a much better price than last year.

What was kind of a damper for me personally, was that I ran one of our cars into another of them at the top of our driveway. It was dark, there was 8 inches of unploughed snow, the driveway is long, narrow and steep and you need to go up straight then turn suddenly at the top. Looking on the bright side: The most dented car already looked like crap because it has 105 thousand miles and is pushing 12 years. Also, it happened in 2008, so I can file it away as last year's stuff and put it behind me.

In what may well be the final post of the year...

Thanks for my 4 readers, maybe in 2009 I will pick-up a 5th.

I pledge to try and post in 2009 more than the 368 times I did in 2008, though I have kind of run out of things to write about.

Oh yes! I will spend my leap-second thinking about this:

He is nigh-invincible.

Christmas montage

A fetching Christmas package from my younger sister's family.

Opening presents...

These creche figures look slightly Chinese. They are from China...

The kids love to decorate sugar cookies the day before Christmas.

" Bassenian said he doesn't take lightly the task of creating a built-in environment for people millions of miles away."

All I can say is, I hope Bassenian doesn't design anything requiring lots (or actually any) math.

The title quote is from an interesting story about suburbs in foreign countries.

Architects create American-style suburbs overseas

Dec 26 01:01 PM US/Eastern

By DAISY NGUYEN

Associated Press Writer

Roast Beef Sandwich Au Jus

I love the period between Christmas and New Year's Day.

There are lots of days off to have a relaxing lunch at home and there is an ingredient available for a really great classic sandwich.

We normally will have a prime rib roast of beef for Christmas dinner, this is the perfect cut for Roast Beef Sandwich Au Jus.

It is simple to make: Just slice beef and place between bread. The hardest part is making the broth. Instant bouillon is easy and plenty good, but it is best is to use actual drippings from the roast itself.

A meal of sandwich, broth and either a beer or hard cider is perfection on a cold Winter day. Especially if one has just spent time out of doors skiing or sledding or splitting firewood.

Massive shoe buy...

I like to purchase several pairs of running shoes per visit to the store. It saves me time and by wearing lots of different shoes, I hope to stave-off injury.

I got such a deal at Kohl's

I had a 30% off coupon that they sent me in the mail and that was all the motive I needed. The nice thing was that all the shoes were on sale.

The list price for all five was $309.96, but since they were all on sale it came to $211.91, then the 30% discount brought it to $148.33.

But it gets even better: I also got a $30 coupon good for anything in the store on my next visit, so effectively the total is $118.43 for one pair each of; Nike, newbalance, Fila, Avia and asics. I should be good right into the heart of Summer.

ADDED: I haven't been running much, what with ice storms, snow storms, broken-down dogs and broken-down cars. Maybe new shoes will get me out the door. Two pair will be for the office, two for runs originating from home and one held in reserve in case a pair doesn't work-out.

A nice salad

1. Layout romaine lettuce and red onion on each plate.

2. Sprinkle on some cranberry sauce, garnish the edges with some nice olives and dress with balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

3. Add heated roast duck, and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

4. Throw on a few candied walnuts and crumble Stilton cheese over the top.

5. Enjoy with some nice artisan bread.

Note: You may notice from the picture that there is another ingredient present but not listed. We like a bit of heat, so there are sliced cherry peppers in ours.

Science and distant relatives

Over the past weekend I had the pleasure of spending some time with relatives of my wife. A couple that I met for the first time, I had a lot to talk about: The husband is a scientist at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute and so it was a great chance for me to talk science. I have been out of research for 7 years, so he probably didn't get anything out of it, but I learned a lot and really enjoyed our conversations. The wife has a lot in common with me too. She just took up marathon running and is working on an MBA. I finished mine a while ago, but we still had lots of notes to compare.

Oh, also their twin girls are the same age as our youngest girl and my sister had twin girls; so there was lots of kid-stuff to talk about. So just what do I mean by distant relatives? Okay, here is how they are related...

Step 1. My wife's cousin: Me to my wife, then her to her mom, her mom to a sibling and then that sibling to her daughter (The Cousin).

Step 2. The cousin's husband.

Step 3. The husband's sister is the wife from above and of course, her husband is the scientist.

If you count it all up, there are 7 degrees of separation between me and the scientist. I am pretty sure there is a shorter path too: When I worked for Affymetrix I dealt with scientists at Roswell Park, so that would be only 2 or three degrees of separation.

In The Land of Coincidence

The other day I noted how I ran into my next-door neighbor at the hardware store. He was his usual cheery self and gave me some sound plumbing advice. Now, a few days later I met his ex-wife for the first time.

There were three of us in the vet's procedure room, plus the dog. While the doctor was off preparing a debridment solution of betadine and sucrose, the assistant and I were chatting. I was telling her how we were staying at our in-laws due to the power outage and their house is set very close to a busy road--which Meenah chose to dash across. Then I started-in with how our road is a dead-end and the houses are far back from the road. She said, "Oh yes, I know. My son lives next door to you." Given her apparent age, I figured she was the mom of the boy next door, not the man. So, I replied, "So, you must be xxx's ex-wife"? Yes.

Small world.

Night and day

Actually, flash and no flash...

This year, with everything going on; we just decided to find a likely-looking victim in our own yard. I think it was actually once a shrub, which went feral since the foliage is identical to some shrubs in the front of our house.

Meenah The Gimp

Getting geared-up for Christmas

A day of chores around houses...

The first part of the day started out well: I went to my in-laws to put together a couple of chairs they had ordered. It went fine since we had put together the first two over the weekend, so we already knew how. I had thought to save time by bringing my drill and a hacksaw. The chairs are held together by a bunch of Allen bolts, so I planned to sacrifice one wrench to make a bit for the drill. The hacksaw wouldn't make a dent in the wrench though.

After this I helped my Father-in-law put in a new light switch. This was very easy since he had all the tools ready, had purchased the right replacement part and knew which breaker to shut off.

The whole trip was kind of a two-fer since they live right by the hardware store and I needed to go there for a pail of plaster and a new kitchen faucet.

It was once I got home that things started to go South. I have installed new faucets before and am aware of what a pain it is. The main problem is that all the connections are up behind the sink which means that you have hardly any space to work between the wall and the back of the sink--everything is in this dark narrow crevice. The only way to reach it is to lay on your back inside of the cabinet. This is uncomfortable and every bit of rust, debris and water that comes from the work lands right in your face. All of the above was the routine and expected kind of hardship which goes with the job.

The next part was special bonus hardship. The existing couplings were an old fashioned copper compression fit and would have to be bent into the shape of a capitol N to meet with the faucet inlets. A really good plumber could have probably made this work and I tried even though I knew what the outcome would be. So, back to the hardware store for retrofit items. The guys in the store were helpful in that they spent some time trying to line-up the right parts for me, but they really didn't have a clue. After about 30 minutes of poking around, I was pretty sure that I knew what I needed to get. Just then my next-door neighbor (a former plumber) came in, and offered to help. I described the problem and he led me right to the parts I had figured would work. Having a concurring 2nd opinion filled me with confidence and I went home with my parts.

I always face a soldering job with trepidation, but this time it all went easily and quick. The faucet is in and an annoying leak is gone.

Bernie Madoff and the 50 Billion Dollars

Poof! 50 Billion Dollars have disappeared. Where did they go?

I think it is safe to say that Bernie Madoff does not have a secret vault with 50 Billion in gold, so where is it?

1. The idea of a Ponzi scheme is that early investors make great returns and this encourages more investors to put money in. The problem is that the "gains" of the early investors are paid by the contributions of the latter investors. So some of the loss is just a function of a zero-sum-game: Some people lost money and others gained money.

2. The news stories lack sufficient detail to really know, but I suspect that the 50 Billion amount is not based upon what was payed-in, but rather on the values claimed on investor's statements. This value was always just a fiction, but if you pulled your money out a few months ago they would have payed-out the full statement value.

3. Trading losses: Madoff's company had to put the money somewhere and given the market conditions, they probably did loose whatever money they actually had in real financial markets.

Other thoughts:

Did Bernie Madoff think he could just keep this scam going forever? He did keep it going for decades, so maybe that was in fact his plan. I would have trouble sleeping at night with a plan like that.

Five days without power--how about some pretty ice-storm pictures?

A big oak branch crashed to the ground in the back corner of the yard, just as I left for work. The icy coating is very pretty. It looks just like glass. This branch shattered when it hit the ground. It happened just as my wife was trying to get the dog to go out for her morning "rounds".