End Game

It has been said, "The journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step", I would just like to add that if the first step is in the wrong direction then the trip is now 1,000 miles + one step.

Vegetarian to Vegan to...?

Raised a Catholic, my idea of vegetarian was a person who ate no meat. Fish did not count as meat. I know to this day, vegetarians who enjoy all manner of seafood.

Next on the continuum are vegetarians who eat no animals of any kind, so basically the same as above except minus the seafood.

At the end of the spectrum are vegans. If I understand it right, they not only do not eat animals, but also disdain any animal products such as dairy and honey.

So what is the next "logical" step? How about food that is made from raw elements? Carbohydrates, fats, vitamins and amino acids can all be made using pure chemical methods. I'm sure that someday chemivarians will look upon plant murderers as utterly barbaric.

I will remain a meat-eating throwback.

Meanwhile, next door at the bumper-boats...

I'm the guy in the blue shirt

Surenna gives Rudy the 5th degree

The Rudy really ought to think about brushing-up on rudy-lore when a 12 year old successfully messes with you.

Update: There are actual reindeer at Santa's Village, but they were not talking.

I don't know why I always do this...

I bring reading material with me when we go on vacation and I did this time too. Did I read any of it? No. Did I read? Yes. I always find a book where we are staying and latch onto it. The problem is that I have to read it fast because I don't want to steal the book but I do want to see how it ends. And no, I don't want to have to buy a copy just to read the last three chapters. The library? Yeah, by the time I get around to that I will have forgotten what the book was about.

This trip I found a copy of Shop Girl, by Steve Martin. I had seen the movie, though I remember only the barest outline of what it is about. The nice thing about the book was that it was slim and so it would not be too taxing to get through.

I liked it. Steve Martin's voice comes through--one can almost hear him narrating the story. There were flaws: He used the term "stacking" for both drinks and pillows, just a few sentences apart. The guy is a famous actor and writer of comedy, so the poor editor probably felt like it was on purpose or something. The other nit-picky issue I had was with geography. He has the girl (Mirabelle I think) flying from L.A. to some little town in Vermont and she flies from L.A. to J.F.K., then to Montpelier VT on a commuter airline and then takes a bus 150 miles to her home town. There is an international airport in Burlington, VT which can handle jets and gets regular service from J.F.K. and Burlington is only about 40 miles from Montpelier. Vermont is a small state, both Montpelier and Burlington are centrally located, so there are two things that stem from this: There is hardly any place (possibly none) that are 150 miles from either city and still in Vermont. Any place that is around that far from Montpelier would also be roughly the same distance from Burlington.

Update: I did some mapping and there is a place in Vermont more than 150 miles from Burlington: Burlington is on the Western border of the state and is about 3/4 of the way up from the Southern border. Brattleboro is 152 miles away in the South East corner of the state and one would pass through Montpelier on the way. But; if you were going to that part of the state, Manchester New Hampshire, Albany NY and Hartford CT are all closer and have major airports. So there.

Ice, holding on by the skin of its teeth

Among the million and one things to do after coming home--besides going to the beach the very next day, but that is another story--is to check on things like the basement dehumidifier. It was, as expected, iced-up. I checked to see if it was nevertheless still dripping water and it wasn't. When it is partially iced, it still seems to work fine but at some point the ice completely clogs it. I turned it off and immediately saw a stream of water flowing out above the reservoir. I have a hose going from the reservoir to a hole drilled into the basement slab, so I never have to empty the thing.

Questions:

1. Was that ice just holding on--barely ice at all and once the slight cooling from the mechanism stopped; instant Spring runoff? The basement is not particularly warm, you would think ice would take a while to melt.

2. In the context of other dehumidifiers and portable air conditioners that have come and gone, I have noticed that when they get old, they are more prone to ice-up. I looked up the physics of these devices and the upshot is that when the Freon (or whatever coolant is now used) gets low, it causes the coils to become too cold and so ice forms on them. On cars and on home AC units there is a port where you can add more coolant but they don't have these on the smaller units. It seems a shame that the lack of a $5 fitting prevents you from doubling the life of a $200 device by adding a couple ounces of fluorocarbons to the machine.

3. A couple of extra valves and controls will allow you to run the window AC unit in reverse (we have one like that but it was hard to find and expensive) so that it can be a heater. If they all came like this then you could use them in the Spring and Fall too. This would be good for the manufacturers because if people used the units three times as long per year, they would wear-out three times as fast and they could sell more. Also, the devices would be more useful for consumers since they can just heat the room they are using instead of firing up their furnace. Heat exchangers are more efficient than any other method when the outside temperatures are mild.

4. The ice-up on the dehumidifier made me think of a feature at Story Land. Outside of their Polar Coaster--a glacial themed roller coaster--they have a ice covered pole. Careful listening reveals that many people ask, "Where does the ice come from"? The pole just has cooling coils in it and so moisture from the air condenses and then freezes onto it.

A good way to start the day.

Wife and I got up early and left the kids sleeping while we went for a jog. Now, I don't normally run in the morning because I am old and thus stiff in the morning, but it is a good time to run with the wife because she isn't stiff in the morning and is a slower runner than me so it all equals-out this way.

We jogged for about 15 minutes and then she went in to shower and do her hair while I, now warmed-up, continued on.

I went up the highway, which wasn't much fun since the sides were steeply sloped. I turned off onto a side road thinking that it would loop back to the main road but after half an hour it just kept winding up and down hills so I finally had to turn back. I ended-up taking around 30 minutes longer than I had said I would, but it was fine: The kids were mostly still sleeping.

We went out to breakfast before going to Story Land--I decided on the steak and eggs. "How would you like your steak cooked sir"? "Rare". "And your eggs"? "Over easy". I detected a slight smile when I ordered how my three eggs should be prepared that said, of course you want them over easy--is there any guy who would order a rare steak for breakfast and then get his eggs any other way?

Everything was perfect. The yolks were salty warm and delicious on the heavily buttered wheat toast, the steak was tender, rare and nicely browned on the outside.

Good start to a full day.

Pictures from the beautiful White Mountains of NH

I would post some pictures from the trip but I haven't taken any good ones yet and if I had it wouldn't matter because I didn't bring the cable.

Yesterday we went to the fun, but very odd Santa's Villiage. Odd, in that it is a Christmas-themed amusement park that is only open in the Summer.

Sunday Mass

I did my Sunday long run early (13.1 miles 1:47:07, about 8:11/mile). I haven't used my iPod shuffle much but today I did and I had it on sequential rather than random. After a couple of Led Zeppelin songs it served-up Mozart's Requiem Mass.

It was an odd combination of penance, spiritual uplift and oddly--efficiency since I could do my physical training at the same time as my non-physical work.

Eh, what's the difference?

Well, we don't at this point know who produced the Obama version but that hasn't stopped the left or the main stream media from loudly condemning it. They were not only silent when Vanity Fair produced the Bush version, they were complicit given that VF is part of the mainstream media.

Both of the posters are wrong though:

Bush is Batman and Obama is Harvey Dent.

Obviously.

What is in a name?

Back when we got married, my wife and I talked about name change issues. She would have taken my last name if I had felt strongly about it, but I didn't. In fact, I always found my last name a little weird. I've gone through my whole life spelling it over and over, correcting the pronunciation etc.

Around the time we got married, my grandmother and independently, a great uncle told me the story of our name. It was probably bull, but they both told essentially the same story:

Our family was originally named Campanelli. There was some other, unrelated to us, Campanelli's who were bandits in that district. So, in order to distance themselves from the bad-Campanelli's, the good ones renamed themselves Pecchia. Here the stories diverged: My grandmother said they picked Pecchia because it is shorter than Campanelli. Yes, it was so ridiculous that I couldn't help making a guffaw. My uncle had a better, if not necessarily true story. He said that Pecchia means something along the lines of hard-worker, like a honey bee. This at least makes sense since a hard worker is kind of the opposite of a bandit.

My wife and I both like the sound of Campanelli and entertained the notion of us both changing to that. More out of inertia than anything else, we never bothered. Besides that, I don't look at all like a typical Italian so it would have been weird to trade in my old name for one that was even more woppy-sounding.

In the end, after three children and 17 years of marriage, my wife just completed the arduous task of changing her name. I didn't care at the time we got married and it was her idea to make the change but I won't lie--it pleases me.

Oh yes: My theory for where Campanelli came from is that the village my people come from is called Campodimele. Just about everybody there is named Pecchia or Difonzo.

Not a bad training time...

I've been running this half marathon course (13.1 miles) on Sundays--if nothing else is going on and I have been trying to improve.

Today I did it in 1:48:42 for a 8:18/mile pace and this is a good 2 minutes faster than last time and I am happy with it in a way. But something irks. In the Boston Marathon I ran the first half in 1:39:15 and I still had another half to go, which I ran in about 1:49. Maybe I should be pushing myself harder or something.

I am pretty darn tired though and worked-up a good sweat along the way. So there is that. Update: I ran this back in May in 1:47:24, it was probably cooler then though.

Very little running this week

Actually, more racing than regular runs and the racing at a slower pace--It is bizarro running week!

Yankee Homecoming 10 78:08:00 7:48:48 28-Jul-09

Glad valley 4.38 32:08:00 7:20:11 30-Jul-09

home 4 miler 4.28 30:38:00 7:09:26 31-Jul-09

The home 4-miler is actually a PR and was done in the rain, though not obsidian-making levels of precipitation.

Oddly, there was torrential rain right before I ran and of course during the time the wife went out for groceries.

An evening in hell

I ran the Yankee Homecoming 10-miler last night. It started at 6:35 PM, but it was still hot and muggy. It was the kind of weather that, even wearing shorts, you sweat while just standing around.

The first couple of miles--from the High School to the waterfront were a mixed bag: I kept the pace under 7:00 per mile but my temperature was climbing at an unsustainable rate. I hit the wall at 3 miles--still right about at 7:00 pace at that point. My legs felt weak, I was out of breath and felt like my brains were boiling. I must have slowed down to 8:00 or higher because I had close to three minutes ahead of an eight minute pace but only ended-up two minutes ahead of that pace by the end. Also, from the three mile point I was pretty constantly getting passed and hardly passing anyone. Between slowing down and the evening cooling, I was not really overheated by mile 6. I probably could have stepped-up the pace to closer to seven minutes per mile and maintained that till the end. Between the heat and fatigue of the first 10K, I just didn't have the will-power to do this.

In the future, when it is hot like this I will pin my number to my shorts and run shirtless. It will be cooler that way and also will save weight. A t-shirt doesn't weigh much dry but when saturated with water it is heavy and uncomfortable.

310 1240 dbp 46 251/762 M 35/123 M4549 CHELMSFORD MA 1:18:08 7:49

Update 2: I never saw cheer-boy among the finishers on the results page.

Photos via Jim Rhoades for cool running

Update: It wasn't all bad. Late in the race I passed a spectator who was smoking a large cigar. I love cigars and would smoke them all the time except that I feel like crap afterwords. I do like the smell of tobacco smoke on a sultry evening but amongst the running set it was probably viewed by most runners as kind of assholian.

After the run we picked-up some beers and went to a fellow runner's house, which was right near to part of the course. Grilled burgers, beer and badinage were the order of the evening.

Little girl who will kill her parents over this someday

Link 

 Kind of slow for the first 20 sec or so, but gets pretty funny.

All Alone

The wife has the kids and a few of her High School friends--plus their kids--down at the pool today.

I am by myself.

With the dog, who crated herself and is napping.

Maybe I'll take her for a walk.

No long run, or any run today: Running a race on Tuesday and need to taper.

Update: Back from our walk. The girl's panting sounds like a steam-locomotive going up a steep grade.

Advice when dealing with police.

To die is to be a counterfeit, for he is but the counterfeit of a man who hath not the life of a man; but to counterfeit dying, when a man thereby liveth, is to be no counterfeit, but the true and perfect image of life indeed. The better part of valor is discretion, in the which better part I have sav'd my life.

--WSS

Otherwise it could be:

May I suggest using your night stick officer?

Dark = Deception

I ran the same 4.3 miler today as yesterday, but today I ran at night. I left around 8:30 so it was nightfall and while not pitch-black by the end, it was pretty dark.

I can see well in the dark and the path is very smooth so I didn't worry about running into things. In fact, I pushed myself very hard and thought I was making really good time. I took almost exactly one minute more today than yesterday.

I think the darkness gives you a feeling of speed, although I was fairly out of breath the whole way, so it is a bit of a conundrum. One thing could be the shoes: I did the 5-fingers yesterday and today wore conventional shoes. Biomechanically, the barefoot ones should be more efficient, but the conventional ones allow faster down-hill runs since you can take a long stride and land on your heel.

Running barefoot on obsidian

Freshly paved roads are not only very smooth, they are blacker than older pavement. The asphalt coats the exposed surface of the crushed stone at first and it is black. After use, the exposed parts wear-off the tarry stuff and expose the less dark stone.

We have a lot of fresh pavement in our neighborhood: The city just installed sewer lines and when they finished they repaved all the roads. Also, a new bike path has just gone in nearby and it too is freshly paved.

Another thing about fresh pavement is that it becomes highly reflective when it is wet. It is flatter than old roadbed and there are fewer voids for the water to collect in, so the water can form a flat sheet.

I worked from home today, so I got to run on these roads. It was also raining really hard, so the roads were like big black mirrors. Also, on these at-home days I have made a habit of wearing my 5-fingers. They are more foot-glove than running shoe. You feel like you are barefoot but with extra strong thick skin on the bottom of your foot. Not only are they fun to wear but they make you a stronger runner too.

On a day like this, with normal shoes on a normal road, I think I would have been lucky to turn 8:30 miles. As it was, I was full of enthusiasm and really enjoyed the outing. I ran a little over 4 miles at a 7:26 pace and loved it! Actually, I probably did sub 7 for much of the run since I started out uphill and stiff from sitting at the computer for the first mile.

If all runs were like this, I would either injure myself or become very fast, all in short order.