Fish Oil

My most popular horoscope for the day--

Expect to be torn between two seemingly paradoxical urges today, Aquarius. Part of you wants to spend the day wrapped in a cocoon, playing with your toys. But another side of you is just as committed to spearheading a major creative or social endeavor with friends who share your revolutionary ideas. You feel exhausted from trying to build the perfect world.

Me and my revolutionary ideas. Nods head. Yup.

The end of November is here. I'm still resisting the sickness of my wife and daughter. Must remain strong. Have started Vit D and Fish Oil Supplements!!

This was a pic I found from the woods in Maryland. Silly me only took a 50mm lens that day, so it doesn't really show how I was surrounded by these Blair Witch trees. Creeeepeeee!

Hunger and Isolation

I can remember being deep in the woods in Maryland in late November. You are surrounded by trees and bushes with rolling hills everywhere. You can't take a step without crushing a lump of dead leaves. When the wind blows through all of this, there are times that you can almost sense the wind as a solid entity moving through the woods. It can give off a creepy illusion that something is out there, something you can not see. It can be somewhat claustrophobic.

180 degrees to that setting is the desert in winter. Today the wind gusts were up to 40 mph or so. Walking with Finley just a few hundred yards away from the nearest house and you can still feel this awesome sense of isolation. You can see for miles and it's just the same scrubby little bushes, the same rocks, and the same cracked dirt. You can walk past a larger bush, and it comes alive with sound as the wind plays it like an instrument. In fact, all you can hear is wind. You feel it push you, trying to get inside you, and rushing past. It's not good weather for running, but if you feel like a quick escape into isolation, it's an oddly beautiful thing.

Walking back towards my house I noticed a strange black object in the sky. It was a large black bird hovering in the wind. I thought it was hawk perhaps, but I'm pretty sure it was just a raven. The first time I ever saw a raven was my visit to AZ a few years back. I heard it before I ever saw it ,as it buzzed over me in a walmart parking lot. Later I saw one lifting things out of a trashcan finally getting a Jack In The Box bag out to eat some fries. They are big and fairly smart I think.

As I continued my walk I saw this raven sitting at the end of a light pole and noticed another smaller bird at the other end of the pole. As I got closer the smaller bird turned out to be a mocking bird. Wow, I thought it was a sparrow. Then the raven began tossing feathers off the light pole. He then held up what looked like a large chunk of bird and waved it around and jumped up and down. The mocking bird then flew down to a tree next to the light pole where I noticed another mocking bird. These two birds sat there in the tree looking up as the raven continued ripping his meal apart. I don't think mocking birds would wait for scraps. Which begs the question, why were they watching? Was the raven's meal their offspring? Or was it a territorial posture on their part?

The raven didn't like me stopped and looking I guess because he took his meal and flew off. The mocking birds flew away too, but I lost track of them. As I rounded the corner a few minutes later, I could see the raven perfectly silhouetted in the afternoon sun on top of another light pole. If only I were to carry around a 400mm lens eh. This time I would walk right under the light pole the raven was on. I could hear his claws scraping the metal and hear his beak pecking the metal. He stopped and looked at me as I stopped underneath him. I said, "Does it taste good?" He continued eating, and I went on my way.

MV 22B Osprey

Sickness is all around me. I am currently resisting!

Las Vegas has a lot of sky traffic. There's the Air Force Base and their continual sorties out to the bombing range. There's a small airport near me, then the big airport south. I didn't know there is this line of helicopters flying around downtown which I heard is for celebrity transport. There's even a radio controlled plane runway a couple blocks away from my house. These rc planes are like 7 feet long.

I see cessnas and helicopters just come and fly circles round my neighborhood like they're looking for someone. And the military aircraft is way more varied here than it ever was at Eglin or Offut.

When I first moved here, I was told that one of my neighbors is a predator drone pilot. There are sighting of those here too. I would like to see one hopefully someday while out in the mountains while running. Anyway, driving home one afternoon before the airshow a few weeks back, I looked up and saw an unusual plane flying away from me. It took my brain a few minutes to figure out what it was. I had forgotten about it until surfing the web tonight. I'm sure it was probably headed to Nellis for the air show.

Vamp Farts

Who knew a street so close to my house would have such strange items. Remember the corgis and decapitated pigeon? Same road today, I see a couple walking towards me and Finley. They look so amazingly ordinary. Both are middle aged, slightly over weight and stocky. The man has some pretty wild porkchops going on and they're slightly reddish in hue. Both wearing sunglasses, hats, very similar exercise outfits , and very similar backpacks that look like school packs. As I walk by, both smile and say Hi! So what could possibly make this completely ordinary encounter stick out?

I swear both of them had vampire teeth!! I forget how trendy vampin is these days.

So the walk continues and I notice that the usually quiet horse corral is full of riders today and several of them are ringing their lassos in the air. Then I notice them yawin in some steers. Yeah I said Yawin! So they were practicing for rodeo I guess. It was funny to me, because I don't think Finley has seen a cow up close and he was kinda wigged out by them.

Next property up I notice 3 horses playing in their pen. Usually I just see them standing around, wavin their tales and stuff. Today though, these young studs were prancin, jumping, rolling in the dirt, and making lots of horsey noises. Yah I'm so not a horse person am I! Somewhere out there is my first serious highschool girlfriend, and I wonder if she still loves horses. Karen? Do you? Anyway, they are playing when suddenly one horse jumps at the other and the other horse dodges the first horse. The first horse comes crashing down and lets out, no explodes with the loudest fart I've ever heard in my life. It was like a gunshot! Ok no it wasn't that loud, but I was definitely glad to be on the other side of the road.

Post Turkey Bits

After about 10 dvd coasters, hours of burning only to get an error, searching through forums, and contemplating whether to just do it in windows, I have finally taken my video camera footage and burnt it on dvd. As with any operating system, sometimes things are just troublesome for seeminlgy no reason.

I have to import the video with a program called Kino. Then I make an ISO disc image using DeVeDe creator. I could probably use a nice program called Openshot to do this. Openshot will be good for converting video to youtube format. Then I went through at least 6 programs to simply burn the ISO file onto a dvd. It shouldn't be that frakkin hard, but it was. The day was saved by a program called K3B.

I'm very happy that I resisted the urge to just load up my old crappy apps in windows. Even though I have to use 3 programs, it takes about 2.5 hours less to burn a dvd which is very cool. I'll also be able to edit more stuff like menus and chapters better.

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The day after Thanksgiving. Whoooh! I woke up this morning feeling like I came out of a coma. Definitely a food hangover of some kind. I'll have to post some pics of the food later this week. Everything turned out well. Well...maybe not the brussell sprouts.

Anyway, I hope everyone had a decent Thanksgiving. I was walking the dog the other day and saw that my street had twice as many vehicles parked as it usually does. As I walked, I could hear kids sqealing, women talking very loudly, smell turkey cooking, smell barbque, and other interesting kitchen smells. It was a clear blue day with a mild wind and just a bit of chill in the air requiring a light jacket. With hardly any cars, it would've been a nice day to run downtown perhaps. There was no running though. Not even the turkey trot that went by my house at 8am could've enticed me.

Cranberries

So normally during Thanksgiving, I look forward to that super tasty combination of cranberry sauce and everything else on my plate. The sauce gets all over and gets into different ratios into the green beans, turkey, mashed potatoes, etc. This Thanksgiving will be a little different though.

There will be no green bean cassarole.

There will be no cranberry sauce from a can.

There will not be mounds of mashed potatoes.

There will be no pumpkin pie.

There will be no pecan pie ( I think) hahaha

There will not be dozens of rolls.

Regardless, I am excited. There will still be a ton a food I'm sure. I'm sure I will still eat at least 3 platefuls and be the last person eating as normal. Turkey turkey turkey in mah belllie!!

Red Rock Canyon #4

I had my 4th run at Red Rock Canyon today. It's max 5000 feet here, but this tells me one simple thing. Uphill is uphill and steep is steep at any elevation. I'd probably alter that opinion if I had the chance to go above 12 thousand. Anyway, I was so out of breath today. Maybe it was the cold? Maybe it was the McD's sausage burritos? Whatever the reason, I never really got much of a groove on today.

I was on a new trail with lots of sticky red clay from melted snow, big rocks, and tight spaces with cactus all over. The scenery though was gorgeous. I will have to get better pics another day and hopefully mesh with the trail better. Anyone remember Merlin from the movie Excalibur? In the end Morgana stabs him through his back with a sword and he says "right through the spine of the Dragon!" Oh wait that was when Arthur drove Excalibur into the rock. The land without a king, the king without a sword. Damn I loved that movie. Anyway, Spine of the Dragon....that came to my mind seeing these rock formations.

In a battling mood though, I decided to finish my run going up, up, up another short one mile trail. After about 1.3 miles it became clear this trail was not ending anytime soon. It was all uphill and fairly steep. I passed a dog off leash earlier so I knew it was time to find a nice rock and just sit. My breath calmed after about 2 minutes and I sat there in silence. The afternoon sun was in full effect and steam was coming off my visor. The only thing my ears could hear was a very faint hum. I'm not entirely sure it wasn't from just inside my ears. No wind, no cars, no animals, nothing but silence....so I just sat there for a few minutes and tried to clear my mind. I couldn't help thinking that this is what someone hears when they die in the desert. Nothing.

So I got up and ran my butt downhill and out of there. I remember the other day in the grocery store, this woman wearing a blue puffy vest and brown pants stared me down in the meat asile. She had spikey red hair and a mouth that tilted in anger making her look like a pissed off sunflower. She looked at me like I was someone who she needed to punch. It kinda spooked me.

Earlier I had taken Finley for a walk and we were passing a horse farm. These two awesome little Corgis with bandanas came running out across the road to meet with Finley. As we were walking away, a 4 wheeler came out of the dogs property and the man yelled at the dogs saying 'You damn F'n dogs, get the *uck back in there!! God Damnit!!! arrrgh" I thought holy cow what an A-hole! Then not a few yards later I saw a huge pigeon head decapitated with no eyes. What would you think? I asked, was it a cat or bird of prey that did this? It was a strange walk also seeing snow falling on the mountain.

Kazzoooo

Injinjis for the magenta

If you think these look weird then you'd have to try them, though I know a couple of you have. The mornings are on the verge of getting a bit cold, so I thought I'd get a pair of these Injinji socks for my vibrams since I wear them while walking the dog.

I loaned the camera to my wife and she put some very interesting pictures on them. She was making stuff at work. Here's a pic.


And in complete contrast of that I will just put out there that The Original Pancake House is awesome. Three meals there now and every one has been fantastic! I had these potato pancakes this weekend ...with just a dash of sour creme? ohhhh it will make whoever doesn't have them at the table jealous! M&D - when you come visit, we will be eating here at least once!!

If you scroll down to this link you can see a pic of them , plus some of their other food.

PANCAKES BABEE!!

Yo wazzz up

The new young people look!! "Suuuuuuuuuuup..." Whose ready for some Zoolander 2?!!!

Leonids

Tonight the Leonid meter show is underway. However, it won't be a big show this year due to the moonlight, and low density of the comet's stream. It will probably be null all the way out here in the westerly west with that darn tootin Pyramid downtown blasting the sky with light. You never know though when you might see a fireball and those are totally worth it.

I was talking to a friend a couple of days ago and timely enough we stumbled onto our memories of going out into a big field in po dunk Florida to watch the shower till dawn. It was a very peaceful night. I tried to watch some last year, but it was just so cold that night in Nebraska. Other times, it was just too cloudy out. I forget which year it was maybe 2001, but that was amazing. If only I had the digital cameras of now back then.

In 2002 I spent all night gazing and got 1 decent pic. I took like 4 rolls of film that night. Why film? No digital sensor I had could have a long enough exposure without severe noise. So film was the ticket. I got a lot of black pictures back that day. hahaha

Spaceweather still has my submission up. It's funny because looking at this pic, you think "that's it?!!" But when I think of all the time and planning I put into this one little picture, it was a huge success to get this one image right before dawn broke out. So many times in the night you would see what seemed like a big and colorful streak and wonder..did I get it? Nope..you got nuttin but stars.

http://www.spaceweather.com/meteors/images/19nov02_page6/p1.jpg

Recovery Runs

About 2 weeks ago, I ran another half marathon at Red Rock Canyon. It was a good strong week with 30 miles for the week capping off my first ever 100+ miles in one month. I used my Garmin gps unit for geocaching in a cheap ipod arm case to give me my running details. It worked well. My previous run at RRC was 4 weeks earlier and that run kicked my ass. This run seemed to have ended well with nipple chafe averted from the chilly wind by changing into under armor. There was no doubt though that I was tired and ready to stop when I got back to my truck. The last mile was creaky!

3 days later I was still really sore. My ankles, calves, knees...what the heck happened? My run 2 weeks prior at the mountain left me refreshed in comparison. I thought about it a lot and there was nothing that really stood out as to why I would be so sore after this run. Rockier terrain? Hotter temp? Too many miles?

Regardless of the cause, it was a mental minus for me. So the following week was about getting in quick short runs that felt good and left me with mental pluses. I still called it a recovery week however you put it. 5 days of running without soreness, and I was feeling much better, but I skipped a long run that week. Then I got sick and took another 4 days off, which seemed like forever. Heck, the last time I went 4 days in a row was back in April. I'm lucky I've not injured myself to have to rest for weeks at a time.

Getting right back out there, Liz suggested we take Veteran's Day and go run at Red Rock Canyon. I said of course, even though I now had this irrational idea that RRC has it out for me. We ran a little over 5 miles that morning at a nice and easy pace. This was good though because it gave me a positive run at RRC. Later that night, I had just a tiny bit of quad pain, but nothing that wouldn't be considered out of the possibility of normal.

The next morning, I decided to head back out to the mountain and get in a decent 6 or 7 mile run there. It had been 5 weeks since I'd last been to Bristlecone trail which is a tough trail to run for me due to the elevation and steepness of the ascents/descents. I was still thinking of this as an extended recovery week though. I didn't plan on pushing myself too hard on this run.

Bristlecone had a bit of a surprise for me though in the form of snow and mudd. I knew it would be colder up here now with prolly some spots of snow. I even went out and got some new pearl izumi fleece arm sleeves to test out in the cool weather. Those worked really well too. I likee! However, some parts of the trail had a good couple of inches of snow. I had to be really careful and walk in many areas especially on the mud. It's crazy running downhill and seeing snow kick off in front of me. I was pleased that even though my shoes are not goretex, they held off moisture well enough. I only saw one couple hiking with their two dogs the whole time I was out there. It's just never a trail run unless I see dogs!

I got back to my truck and noticed a dog had peed on my truck tire. Made me laugh. But once in my truck, I realized that my camera was like a block of ice! The back side of the mountain was in shadow and was fairly cold, prolly right around 40 or little colder. It was a good slow run though. Later that night, I felt fine as could be. Red Rock still has some mean mojo to it I think. It won't be long before I go back. Gotta tame that beast! I'm kidding, you can't tame mother nature, you can only adapt to her.

Here are some pics from my snowy run!



Where's the trail dude!


Clean fresh air babee!


Still lovin these cheapo NB 572s!


I don't need a stinkin tripod! A snowy rock will do. Liz says I look insane!

Ruff!

There are more ninja dogs in my neighborhood! Look carefully and you'll see the ninja in training too.

I really had to say Woof to get the dog to look at me. I think he telepathically said his name was Ed!!

RRC Panos

I've been fighting off a cold since Thursday. Scorecards are not in my favor today. I'll post some pics from my Red Rock Canyon run last week.

The first pic is made up of 4 pics which is really overdoing it because this stretch of rocks is just too big. It's hard to get a sense of scale without a person being in the pic, but you can see a trail on the lower right and get a bit of an idea.

This is just two pics. You can see the sandstone rock section behind the red rocks here, but I had to turn round at this point and it looked pretty nice.

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Endurance Blenders

First off, congrats are in order to my friend Marcro who completed his first Ironman in Panama City the other day. I used to be his official race photographer and captured his efforts in his first days of triathlons. I'm sure deep down this has been a goal of his for many years, so to see it finally come to reality is huge. In contrast, I ran for a little over an hour yesterday and thought, "Now imagine swimming for that long!". That just made me laugh because I know I would've been dead an hour earlier :)

I watched the ING New York City marathon today. I know, watching running is officially entering the nerd realm of running, but I had to see if Meb Keflezighi could defend his title. This was not to be though as he placed 6th. The winner of the men's race was Ethiopian Gebre Gebremariam. I believe this was his first ever marathon. Impressive! As was first ever marathon for Shalane Flanagan of the US in the womens race who placed 2nd. Nothing but inspiration going on in New York today.

In the regular world of regularness, I finally killed the cheap blender we've had for years. It's not too often when an appliance breaks and my wife smiles. So we finally got to Bed Bath & Beyond to get a new one. You know their discount coupons never expire? We ended up with a new Kitchen Aid blender for 100 bucks. If it's as good as their mixer though, it should make some mean smoothies for years to come.

While in BBB, my daughter pleaded with me to sit in the Sharper Image massage chair. Ok Ok Ok Ok already. I sat down and it was on lower back, shiatsu, heat setting. My face instantly changed after about 10 seconds. Then I looked side to side as if I was suddenly being watched! This was feeling really good. Asa then wanted me to switch into the other chair. I told her NO! Daddy is busy!

The last time I sat in a 'massage chair' was in an actual Sharper Image store some 20 years ago (sniff) I was sooo not impressed. So I'd never sat in one since. All of a sudden I was giddy over this massage cushion. Liz then says maybe we should get a recliner and put that pad in it. I think I tilted my head up as I envisioned myself going on a secret journey of whahhhgaaahhh. If you're confused by that just think of Homer Simpson salivating about a donut. I predict a strong chance of self indulgent shiatsu massages in my future!

The 5th of November!

I´m not the biggest Daft Punk fan out there. If I were, I would have seen their movie Electroma, which I'm still curious about. So, I finally remembered to find their new music video related to the new Tron movie coming out, and found myself watching a bunch of Daft Punk videos. The new Tron footage looks really good too. I can only hope the script and direction will be something above average. I have hope for the fresh new director though.

Anyway, I found this video bit from Electroma with Kill Bill music. I love the music from KB so that makes watching the whole sequence pretty easy. However, there's good use of tension, and the lack of facial expression allows one to project their own feelings. At the very end, I thought it was perhaps a commentary on how we have a tendency to destroy things in our lives and turn right back around rebuilding them. Always trying to get back to some point before maybe? Meh, I could be making a sculpture out of a piece of mud too.

Hello Ubuntu

I was telling my friend that I wussed out and made my pc dual boot just in case I needed windows for something. What??.... I have no clue!

Needless to say switching operating systems is never easy. I think I have the oldest computer out of anyone I know. I used to be so cutting edge! Minus the days I thought Windows 3.1 was never going to leave my screen. Anyway, I´ve been saying I was going to get on the linux train for a while now. It´s about time perhaps.

It´s been a busy last week with Halloween, my Friday run in the canyon, and dental shananigans (love that word). Hopefully, I´ll get some pics processed later this week and post´em up.