Birthday time

The last few days have been a blur with Asa turning the big 4. It's so much easier now for her to hold up 4 fingers. One of her birthday gifts was a kid's digital camera. Turns out I can actually download them too. Here are some of her first pics!

Her new pillow pet


Our street


A classic bush pic


and I really like this one of Finley

Open

I found myself reading one of those small 5x5 paper magazine pamphlets the other day like a Readers Digest only with Christian inspired stories. One story was about a woman who had to take wheat out of her diet to combat her migraine headaches. The story had some recipes too. I am so glad I have allergy issues over migraine headaches btw. The next story was about a family who bought a tugboat and would sail around up to Alaska with their three kids. They made soup with lentils, onions, carrots, celery and sausage. They all loved it and called it tugboat soup. One day all that sausage caught up with the dad though and he needed a triple bypass. I have pretty much stopped all eating of sausage btw. So now they make a healthy version of the soup. This story came with recipes too.

I told myself I needed to go get a book the other day or I would continue to read that crazy little pamphlet. So after much deliberation, I almost picked Into The Wild again by Krakuer, but read one review on Amazon that just sealed the deal for this book.


The first chapter confirmed my hopes of choosing this book as it was just awesome. The opening scene is with Agassi laying on the floor in a fetal ball unable to get up, body full of pain and discomfort, mind full of confusion and anxiety. It reminded me of a story from RW I had read about Meb Keflezighi who won the 2009 NYC marathon. That was a big deal for American marathoners. Meb has been struggling with success and failure a lot the last few years as well. In 2007, he finished the NYC marathon in a massive crash of pain learning that his close friend, Ryan Shay had died during the race. Meb was laid up for days in a hotel. This man that professionally runs could barely crawl those few days. He just dragged himself on the floor across the room. I'm not a professional anything these days, but sometimes I wonder if I'm living too comfortably.

Pat Tillman

I finished Where Men Win Glory , a 400 page book in 9 days. That has to be a record for me. Usually takes me a month to read a book of that length. After a good movie or book, I like to try and process it for a bit ... look up reviews, background information, and commentary online. Evidenced by how fast I read the book, it really sunk its teeth into me. I've spent a good bit of time, trying to process my feelings about all of it.

I'm not going to write a review about the book because there's just so much to cover, but I'll just say my life is richer from reading about Pat Tillman.

I found this picture online. Right before Tillman was killed, he and his fellow Ranger Bryan O'Neal were under heavy fire from their fellow Rangers and O'Neal was hunkered into the ground praying. Tillman says to him, why are you doing that? How is that going to help you?

Tillman's atheist component doesn't detract from all the solid virtue that truly defines him, but I thought it was a fascinating item. That's his brother Kevin on the right.

New Challengers

I took Asa to her school orientation today. I thought it was kinda funny that I was a bit nervous about it all. I met with her teacher Mrs. Kim and some of the other mothers of the boys in the class. There was one dad there that reminded me of Ray Liotta. He just had this whole tilt and scowl to him that said , "You want some of me?!!" I stayed away from him.

Anyway, lots of new dad experiences for me. It will be strange, sad, and a relief all at the same time to have her in school 3 full days a week. When kids have birthdays at the school, instead of doing a birthday, they do a 'spotlight' day. They get to bring in a show n tell item and their parent/s. I may get to read a story to the class! That will be a little weird for me.

Here's the school's shield!!



"What are you going to do with all your free time?" Yah that's the running jab I hear lately. Some believe I will just come home and sleep. You may be right. I will certainly take a nap every now and then, but I have plenty to do. One of those things is putting more consistent time into my trumpet practice.

I've had a couple of lessons so far from a elderly gent named Gary. He played in the Navy band some 20 years ago. He comes to my house and charges me 25 bucks for an hour lesson. He's pretty funny too. As much as I want to learn trumpet skills, I really enjoy just talking music with him and hearing about his wild music days.

The hardest thing for me so far in playing is hitting the higher notes. The are 31 notes on my beginners chromatic scale. Note number 23 is an E which is open meaning no valves pushed down. It's so freeking hard for me to play right now. I feel like my lips are just going to implode. Today was the first day that I really played it solid for a good 5 seconds and then was able to repeat without my lips just puckering out. A lot of my practice right now is really boring, it's simply playing notes over and holding them to work out my lips and lungs. It's pretty fun though.
Here's a pic of my Ambassador Olds Cornet I bought off of ebay from another polish Marc who lived in Kissimmee, FL.

LV Teethers

Asa had a dentist appointment today. I chose this dentist based on the recommendation from our family doc on base. This dentist doesn't specialize in children like the one we had in Nebraskie. Despite not having a farm mural and lots of super cool kid things ( I mean come on man, the x ray gown was turd brown) it was actually kinda nice. It was just laid back and simple. The dentist was this nice and calm asain-american guy round my age wearing scrubs. Granted he had some techy head gear on, but it didn't go too far.

The good news is that Asa's chompers got a big thumbs up! Oh thank goodness I say.

They had this big brown super shag carpet in the waiting room. Asa kept saying how much she loved that rug. She would lay down and swim on it laughing. You want them to be relaxed and have fun, but at the same time...it's like okkkaay that's enough! She did really well though and I was proud of her. I think I'll prolly make myself an appointment at this same dentist when it's time.

Green Goat Butter

So after trying a few brands of soy milk and then asking why the heck am I drinking this, I came to the conclusion that all milk is pretty lame nutritionally as a food, unless it's raw milk. And if you're going to try it raw, then you'd be good to try goats milk. Even though it wasn't raw, I saw it at the Fresh & Easy grocery so I had to try it.

I poured myself a big cold glass of it expecting it to taste like regular milk. Certainly it wouldn't have the thinner sometimes immodium-ish taste of soy milk right? At first, it did taste just like regular milk. Then the after taste came, and I got that look on the face that said, "ok what the hell was that funkiness?!!" So what do you do when you get that look? You drink some more and then some more. I think I felt a hair or two growing out of my chin. The after taste actually tasted like you swallowed the odor of a farm animal. It's official!!! This goat's milk is a little gross. Though you don't notice it in smoothies.

Supposedly Almond butter is better for you than peanut butter. According to the latest RW issue, almond butter has more calcium and magnesium than PB. Also almond butter has 60% more mono saturated fat. So this is a good thing for my cholesterol level. I"m coming up on 6 months since my last checkup. I hope to see my HDL number up up up!

It's funny that the goat is drinking his own milk on the carton though.

I was walking a few weeks back and saw a jar of sun tea on the deck of a house. I finally remembered to get a sun tea jar. Was only 5 bucks too, so happy about that. So we made some sun green tea!! It's a nice change from water and lemonade.

Roads or trails?

My treadmill faces a wall. On it I have a page from Runner's world taped to the wall. It's a picture of Scott Jurek. It's a sepia toned picture of just his face. His face is tilted slightly upward and has a hint of discomfort in his face. The whole tone of the pic matches the tone of the article very well. Scott has demons and he constantly has to ask "why do I do what I do?" "Am I doing this for me or for others?" " Is it all worth it?"

I guess I thought his pic would be some sort of silent cheerleader for me, but rigth now ,my time on the treadmill isn't about pushing my limits both mentally and physically, which I think is what Scott Jurek is about. So I often find myself closing my eyes and thinking of running on an elevated hill alongside the pacific ocean or running through the trails I used to walk through in Maryland. I really had no idea, the gold in trails I had there.

I was thinking that maybe I should take a photo from my own collection and blow it up to hang on my wall. Here are some of my favorites from my visit to the Painted Desert in AZ.

Mach 11

Well, it's finally done. Our house in Nebraska is officially SOLD! Money has been wired, deeds signed, and the new tenants have been given the keys. I heard they have 4 small children too. Wow! I'm thinking of 4 kids in that house. That would be nuts. Now I just have to pay off the utilities. My last water bill showed that I 'used' water comparable to last years usage. I'm glad the water company admitted that was an estimation charge.

I read the back of this book and couldn't stop thinking about it, especially when I read some reviews saying the book was less about the war and really an exploration of the man. So this may be my first of a few Jon Krakauer books.


A couple of my friends are reading Born To Run right now. One of them has already been tempted with the idea of doing an Ultramarathon. The other one told me, I understand why you really got into running after reading this book. He has even dabbled with the idea of getting some tarahumara huaraches, which looks like this.

Maybe I'll try on these copper canyon bullets someday, but in the meantime I'll stick with other shoes I think.

So I sent my friend a running blog link that I thought had a lot of good material on minimalist running and he emailed me back about the clearance sale on the Brooks Mach 11s. I couldn't refuse a 30 dollar price for a new pair of shoes. This shoe is not only light, but has hardly any heel. It will be interesting to see how these feel both on the treadmill and outside. Hopefully their rigid frame won't be negative for me.

Chops

Well this weekend went by fairly.....slow it seems. I ate a good bit of bad food. A place called Souper Salad which is a salad+ buffet. We were out late book shopping and this seemed a better option than macaroni grill. I say better because someone in the family is the pickiest eater ever. Souper Salad was surprising pretty good though as buffets go.

Sunday after seeking out some used book stores and consignment furniture places we found ourselves at Olive Garden. hahahaha yah I think Liz jedi mind tricked me into going here. I chose some low cal options for soup and entree. They were ok. But I had to have some desert. I decided to try their new Dolcini deserts which are little cups of creams and chocolates that you can get in different combos. They were decent enough. Asa ate a good portion of chocolate cake and reminded us later that high levels of sugar equal lots of screaming later.

Anyway, I felt kinda restless this whole weekend. I didn't run and I don't have a book to read. I think this was perhaps why.

Last week, I actually read this book very quickly as it's pretty short. It's a simple book with some powerful messages. One of my fav quotes is from Mother Teresa: " We can do no great things, only small things with great love."

Liz had actually had a chance to listen to Dr. Morsch speak so she bought a copy. She is investigating an opportunity to do some work in Niger ( pronounced Ni zhay) next year as well.

I am gravitating towards another war related book right now and if nothing peaks my interest I may have to pick it up.

Recently I purchased another knife. It's been a long time. Here's a pic of the blade.
Normally I don't find such a 'pointy' blade very pleasing, but I guess I was ready for it. The interesting thing about this knife is the symbol of the company. Al Mar was actually the name of the company's founder who was Chinese American I believe. The symbol turns out is what is called his 'chop'. It's a family seal of sorts that goes with perhaps older traditions of a signatory power that is held in higher regard than just ones name. I still don't know what it means per se, but I think it has something to do with 'horse' which would allude to probably the finer qualities of a horse. You got some CHOP knowledge? Feel free to fill me! ( uhh in)

Page, AZ

Here's a pic from March of 2005 in Page, Arizona at about 9am.


I was conversing with an old friend a day ago and was reminded of my trip with Liz all over Arizona. I remember this particular morning well. It was chilly and quickly reminding us that the last couple of nights of freezing in the Grand Canyon were kinda insane.

I was panicked and urgent about getting to the 'gorge' in time so that the light would be just right. We had to walk about a half mile or so to get out to it, and we were so exhausted at this point in our trip, that we really didn't want to get up. Turned out that my thinking was 'not so smart' because when I got to the gorge, I was very disappointed in what I saw.

I'll show you I guess..it's kinda embarassing, but oh well.

A big polish shadow right across it. Great!

What I never see in all the previous pics though is that the ledge to point in this direction is a big sheet of slate slanted upwards at about 30 degrees. This means you have to walk up it and kinda peer over it with the tripod to get everything you can in frame. I am not very comfortable, ok I'm really not comfortable with heights and this whole thing kinda made my spine tingle anyway. So in a way, the shadow gave me an excuse not to risk myself trying to get the ledge out of the bottom of the frame.

It was a quick decision to go back to town and get some breakfast. My feet were so sore at this point from all the hiking we had done in the Grand Canyon. I wimped it up and went to dirty WalMart to get new socks and odor eaters. Those HiTec boots were not so good in retrospect. Definitely not good with heat insulation either.

Page, AZ is breathtaking in its views though. If I could go back there now, I would love to find a trail that overlooks Lake Powell and run on it for as long as I could. That might be one time I would actually consider listening to Steve Roach on an ipod.

Jars and Noodles

VHS monsters DO exist!!

I went to buy a music stand today. The woman working there suggested I let Asa pick the color, so I ended up with a purple one. She asked for my ID when I paid for it. (I should have my LV drivers lic anyday now as they mail it here) She says, "ohhhhhh Nebraska! Oh Myyyy..someone's lost some weight too!"

Thanks! I'm just glad it's not from pancreatic cancer or anything like that. Then she asked me if I wanted to buy a piano too. Sure let me grab that one over there, what's the price? 36,000 you say? Pffft, let me get out my black Amex card. Do they get a commission on selling a piano?

Guess what I ate for dinner? Let's just say it involved spaghetti sauce! Since I have over 200 ounces of it, it will prolly be a frequent meal. Yikes!

Shiskabob

From the urban dictionary - Shiskabob

1. A college aged male who is about half a drink a day away from being an alcoholic. 2. Someone who would rather drink on a Wednesday afternoon than a Friday night and doesn't know when to stop, at which point he transforms from Shiskabob to Shitskabob.

Man, the Shiskabob better ease up on that scotch or we'll be meeting Shitskabob shortly.

These bad boys were tasty. I have to give credit to the marinade that Liz made for them. Somewhere in the realm of teriyaki with a side of mexican. Or wachaaa, olay!

What do you think we are making here?


Dats right, home made spaghetti sauce. Turned out pretty good too. Just add a small can of tomato paste and you're good to go. Was quite tasty!

I finished my book about Brain plasticity. I'll be sending that off soon to you know who! A couple of cool items from the latter half of the book.

1. A woman who had a rare genetic disorder that made her retinal cells die off. Middle of her life and suddenly she is blind. The thing is, she loved to read. Well now she has a special machine that reads to her at a speed so fast, people like you and me can't understand it. But since her visual cortex is now processing auditory information she can hear at , I think it was 450 words a min?!!!
She literally finds authors and reads ALL their books in few days.

2. The sea gypsies are a people who live most of their lives in the ocean. You can read about them here. The amazing thing they can do is adjust their vision underwater to see better. They can control the shape of their lenses in their eyes and constrict their pupils to a high degree.

They live their life on the ocean and are in tune with it. When the Dec 2004 tsunami came, they saw it before anyone else as a very small wave that was out of place and went out to sea or inland and survived. And finally, some of their tribes can free dive to 75 feet as they have learned to slow their heart rate.

Which kinda brings me to one of my next posts which will be about a heart rate monitor that I bought recently. It's biofeedback fun!