What we've been up to

The back yard.Liina exercising on the back porch.Rosie at Islands of Peace Park.Walking around downtown.The Heights Theater.Loring Park near Downtown Minneapolis.Old Lyman Lake Road.Highway B.Lisa's fuchsiaDinner at Greg and Lisa's house.

Brooklyn Center, MN is completely hosed up with construction this summer.

I drove through the crap today to get some pictures to illustrate how bad it is. To be honest, I found a way around it that only takes me 7 minutes longer each way (and I'm going to keep it a secret until that way starts getting as jammed up as the freeway).

So that's the freeway.  All exits and entrances on both sides of the Mississippi are blocked. I don't have any good advice for how to get around it for you. I used Google maps to find my way, but I live very close to the mess and I work on the other side of it.  What really sucks is that all the shopping in BC is on the west side of Hwy 100 from my neighborhood and they tore down the bridge between us and that too.

That doesn't quite get the full impact, but it definitely shows what I mean.  And I was trying to drive at the time, so...it's as good as it gets. No secret to that one; just follow the detour signs.

I'd like to see this Hound of Heaven exhibit

at Mary Hill Museum in Goldendale, WA.

Not very philistinish, but hey...

I'd really like to get this there.

Look! It's FDR and his Brain Trust!

And some of the members of Congress who supported the New Deal and the nine members of the Supreme Court who ruled unanimously against Filburn in 1942.  They're dancing on the Founding Documents.  They've already rubbed out all the ink.

I got this here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:167_devils_dancing.jpg

Yeah, it's demonizing.  Does anyone deserve it more?

Crestfallen Still

Not a description of my current state; it's a band.  Check it out.

Speaking of "I've done better"...

I ran Grandma's Marathon Saturday. 5:02:47 on the chip. I kicked butt for about a dozen miles, then I ran out of juice. The Powerade wasn't doing it for me - it just gave me heartburn. I needed some real food. At about mile 16, people started handing out oranges and bananas, but those did nothing for the heartburn. Maybe all I needed was a couple Tums. When you're feeling beat up, the last thing you need is one more pain on top of all your aches. Oh! Hey! I just found this! That may have been another miserable performance, but it's up there with the top five great experiences of my life. (...wedding day, girls being born, finishing my first marathon...you know the drill.) Actually, I have to say that this was a PR for Grandma's. (I ran it in 5:12::03 last year.) And I know I can whoop @$$ on it. I'm thinking I should eat an energy bar at about 6 miles and another one at about 12. Or probably something pretty high in protein, though not a protein bar per se. I'll have to see what's out there. Protein helps a lot with the heartburn.

 But I will be carrying a couple Tums too.

 Here's me, trying to look bright-eyed and bushy-tailed after the race (I was escorting the girls to the bathroom at the campground:













So, there's your race recap.

 I mentioned the campground. We decided to save a lot of money on this one, so we camped at Pattison Park, about 10 miles south of Superior, Wisconsin. (And seven miles west of where I grew up.)















I call this pic "I'm On Vacation":

(The older girl saw the sign - the rest of us were looking at something off to the right. I forget what.)







This here is what you go to Pattison for. We had a big thunderstorm that started right after the race and kept us in the pop-up trailer all afternoon. Then it cleared up about 6:00 PM and the park was absolutely magnificent!

I've done better.

I ran the TC 1-Mile again today. 7:50 was my chip time. The only thing I can blame somebody else for is that they pushed the race back 3 weeks into the middle of May from late April. On the other hand, the only reason that's a problem is that I'm now entering the last month of training for Grandma's Marathon on June 16th, so my training is focused on distance, not speed. I think I'm in better shape than I have been. I could have squeezed a little more out of those quarter miles and at least beaten last year's 7:39. I was winded at the end, but I recovered pretty quickly. I ran this the first time in 2006. I got 8:40. I remember being extremely winded at the end of that one. 8:05 in 2007; 8:41 in 2009... I'm pretty sure those were all gun times. In 2010, they started showing both gun and chip times, so my chip time then was 8:09. Last year, I think I paid more attention to my breathing and kept myself in the hard-breathing range. This year, I was a little afraid of doing that. I focused on shaving a few seconds off each quarter mile split. It work, sorta. Maybe if I can do both, next time. Next race: the Manitou 15K in White Bear Lake on June 2nd. I'm going to try for 9 minute miles all the way around. I mean nine even. Goal time: 1:23:40. Then we'll see what happens at Grandma's.

Fambly pix

Well, Hey Howdy Y'all!

Haven't been here for a while!

I thought I'd post my Holiday pics here.

Yes, that's the dog under those clothes. I call this picture "Merry Christmas!"

Yay! Loot!

Christmas at Mom's; 700 miles south.

That's Mom, my brother-in-law, the older girl and my brother. I forgot to open the flash and the picture came out yellow and grainy, but, if you don't blow it up, it's kinda pretty.

'Liina got on my nephew's bull.

No! Wait! I forgot I'm an old geezer! He's my great nephew!

My sister's rooster. He's probably got a name, but I didn't catch it.

67°F out New Year's Eve. Then we drove back home to 18°F. Couple inches of snow on the driveway with ice underneath. Or about 19° and -8°C, respectively. I think I did my math right this time.

Since Blogger decided to wipe out my old template

and all my links (which I we seriously considering redoing from the ground up anyway), I decided to change to this one, which I find rather pleasant.

Chomski and Forced Sharing

I read these two articles in close proximity. It makes an interesting juxtaposition: Noam Chomsky, Closet Capitalist and Beware of Forced Kindness A Lethal Destroyer of Your Happiness.

I don't know how I screwed up that Chomsky link, but it's fixed now. By the way, I should say that I agree with Chomsky about as much as I agree with the Hoover Institute - Chomsky's better about American foreign policy than they are.

Running talk

I ran Grandma's Marathon last Saturday. Here's how that went:

I got that image from here.

The last two long runs on my training program for the Afton 50K are both 26-milers. I actually ran 25.88 two weeks before the Marathon and, of course, the Marathon is 26.2. I trust them to measure that right. I did about the same time...well, no...by the chip, I was considerably faster - even though there's a lot more wandering around on your feet before any race than there is before any training run.

Interesting factors: I mowed the lawn the night before the race. Probably not recommended. It was under 50 degrees (F - 10 degrees C) for most of the race and windy as hell. Mostly a tail wind, but when the strong gusts hit your sweaty back, it's quite a chill. Nasty day to be outside in shorts and a t-shirt - and all wet besides. I didn't stick around the Finish Area any longer than it took to fill up on free food.

They had the white "Hypothermia Danger" flags out. The fast runners liked it. The cold and the tail-wind, I mean. They might have liked the flags, too, I suppose. I doubt that anyone asked. (I know I didn't.)

Anyway, I took Sunday and Monday off, except for trimming my hedge, which was quite a bit overgrown. It made me sweat, but it didn't seem like terribly hard work.

Today I ran 8.35 miles or so. Since I the 50K is a trail run, I ran beside the paths, roads and sidewalks as much as I could. I avoided places where the cant was too steep and deep puddles. We had a thunderstorm today. And, actually, another tornado touched down a few miles north of where I work.

The run went pretty well: 87 minutes, and I felt strong enough to kick up to an 8-minute mile pace for the last 3/4 of a mile. I was feeling like freakin' Superman, actually. I wanted to go faster, but I've injured myself that way, so I didn't.

Edit: Oh, hey! I just looked at my training log on Map My Run. I did the 25.88 run in 5:23. That's almost a full 11 minutes slower than I did at Grandma's.

Adele's Rolling in the Deep is the best song ever!

Pick your link from here.

She's a genius! The song may be equaled, but it can't be beat.

OMG! She's going to be at First Ave on May 26th! I'm going to have to find out what they're charging!

Edit: Ah Crap! It's sold out already.

Watched a couple good movies

I'm going to put O Brother, Where Art Thou on my favorite movie list. It's just brilliant from start to finish.

Groundhog Day doesn't quite rise to that level, but it's got a couple scenes that keep you chuckling for a while after the movie.

Ouch!

I don't want to be one of these kinds of philistines. What I really meant to say, originally, when I came up with my title, is that most people have a lot more going on in their minds than demonizers give them credit for.

I don't think I've proved that here, but I'll give her a bit more of a go before I give up the blog.

I picked up a movie at Half-Price Books about the original Philistines that I want to talk about, but I'll have to mull it over a bit more first.

The violence you can stop, you must stop.

I was having a little debate on Youtube about Stef's reading of deMause's The Origins of War in Child Abuse (which can be found here as well as here).

That has led me to believe that it's about time I put my thoughts on morality down in writing. I accept Stefan Molyneux's arguments in Universally Preferable Behavior: a Rational Proof of Secular Ethics. On page 53 of the PDF, he starts his proof of the validity of the Non-Aggression Principle.

Hmm. I'm going to have to look closer look. I've just fried my brain doing a scan of the entire book.

Anyway, the thought I had when I wrote the title of this post was that it does fit the UPB format, except that it's unenforceable. Because we can't know the capacities of an individual we would enforce it on. That removes it to the level of an Aesthetically Positive Action. People like it when you do it, but they may not use force to force you to do it.

Bundling up for winter runs

The temperature went from 18°-22°F while I was running today, and I'd have to say that I was relatively comfortable. No doubt spandex, or whatever those tights are made of, works better than the cheap stuff I wear, but I'm not here to help rich people. Except maybe to preserve their wealth by not squandering it on unnecessary stuff. I mean, I don't think I'd look good in that anyway.

Today, I took the risk of skipping the long johns and the undershirt; I only wore one pair of socks (but that's been plenty - I haven't run in temperatures colder than 10 below, ignoring windchill). I was OK with just sweat pants and two layers of polar fleece jackets on my upper body - one with a hood. And my Twins ballcap. I just wore my TC 1-Mile technical shirt under the jackets.

Oh, I also wore a safety vest for visibility. It was foggy out when I started. And my little knit gloves. They work just fine once you're warmed up. Keep your hands in your pockets for the first couple miles.

If there'd been any wind, I would definitely have needed the long-johns and undershirt. As it was, my shirt got completely soaked with sweat and apparently my jackets were flopping around enough on the bottom, where the vest wasn't holding them in place, to fan cold air in and darn near freeze the sweat. When I showered my belly was red and the hot water stung it.

Other things I should mention before I forget: I ran 16 miles in 3:15. The 16 was planned, the 3:15 was surprisingly slow, but I suppose that was due to the fact that there were a lot of slippery patches, and I prefer to run on a layer of snow rather than frozen asphalt and concrete. Or ice.

I slathered my feet with Glide and duct-taped my nipples. Technical shirts are rough on those (the latter, not the former). I used inch-square pieces today as an experiment and they worked like a champ. I've tried ¼ inch squares and ½ inch squares, but they haven't lasted for a whole long run. I can't get these off even now. Oh, well. My wife's the only one who'll have to deal with them. Pretty sure I'll be rid of them by Tuesday.

Invictus, by William Ernest Henley (1875)

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.



In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.



Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.



It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll.

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

After all the fluff has settled, here's where we're at

 Hm.  For some reason, Blogger's flipping my picture sideways.

As to my scientific methodology: I grabbed my four foot ruler, walked out to the nearest undisturbed spot in the yard (to my front door) and pushed the ruler down into the snow as far as I could.  I didn't sample more spots.

So there.

The computer thermometer tells me it's 14ºF out.  Warming up a bit.

[My character map calls the degree sign a "masculine ordinal indicator."  What the hell?]