Spring Snow

My day yesterday:

Cats inside


Snowing outside

Me inside, drawing, working on website, went running, too.

Kathleen working (no pic available)

Put Your Finger in There, I Dare You

Sometimes people think the world is going to shit. Then you see a kick ass saw like this and you just know the future is a better place.

Sugarless Death, I mean Gum

I'm a regular gum chewer. The other day, for some reason, I looked at the ingredients on the side of my pack of gum. Highlighted in bold letters it said " PHENYLKETONURICS: CONTAINS PHENYLALANINE". So I'm like, WTF is this?

Then I look at the full list of ingredients and there's some other things that I'm wondering about: SORBITOL, GLYCEROL, ARTIFICIAL FLAVORS, XYLITOL, MANNITOL, ASPARTAME, ACESULFAME K, BHT, BLUE 1.

So Kathleen looks around a little on Wiki and other places and it turns out PHENYLALANINE is some weird substance that some people can't process and it will kill them. Oh, great. And the main ingredient, SORBITOL, is a laxative that causes gas and loose stools. Great again. And ASPARTAME has something to do with cancer. At this point, I don't even want to know what the other ingredients do.

Well then I wondering, How is this possible? Every thing seems so strictly regulated in this country. How can the government/FDA allow these things to be sold if they really are harmful? And then I think about how you can also buy alcohol, tobacco, high fructose corn syrup, McDonalds... And they used to sell asbestos for all sorts of uses and encourage women to douche with Lysol . So I guess we can't just rely on the infinite wisdom of govt agencies or the endless compassion of big money hungry corporations to keep us healthy. I guess we do still have to think for ourselves. Damn it. Oh wait, I don't have to think for myself... I have KATHLEEN! Woo hoo!

Bombs Awaaaaayyyy

Here's Adam's (my bro) first sky dive (and first youtube upload). I was, unfortunately, out of town that weekend.

Locating Satellites

That's what the first thing this watch says when you turn it on.



It's a Garmin 305 that is on temp loan from my Aunt. She wants me to figure out how to operate the thing for her... It is a bit unintuitive, lots of menus, but mostly really freaking cool.

So it's a GPS unit and a heart rate monitor and a bunch of other stuff, too. It even tells time. It came in really useful already on my long run (18 miles) last Saturday. I was running w/ the ESR club and they were doing one lap on a loop thru Medina. After that lap was done, I had two more to go, but I hadn't really paid attention where to turn on the first time thru. This watch, however, had kept track of where I had gone and showed me a little map w/ the dotted line and pointed the way for me to go. I love this thing.

Here's something that cracks me up tho. It is huge. It looks like an old pager or garage door opener strapped to your wrist. The product pix supplied by the manufacturer only show the unit from one angle so you can't see it's girth until you've alread bought it.
They have a new unit coming out soon that has the antenna built into the wrist strap so it looks more like a regular watch.

The Easter Basket

I think this may be the first Easter in 35 years that I was not at my mom's house and thus the first year that I would have gone without an Easter basket. Kathleen stepped up, tho, and came thru nicely with a basket of her own making.

See that chocolate/carmel Cadbury egg in my hand? I used it right after this picture as a melted topping on our french toast. Mixed it w/ a little rasberry jam... Mmmm...

My Own At-At

Kathleen is always talking about getting a dog. I'd rather have one of these...

Boston Dynamics keeps working on their BigDog quadruped robot, which will
probably grow to be the future AT-AT of the Pentagon. Its evolution since the last time we saw it is nothing sort of mindblowing, and a bit spooky.
It looks like an actual biological quadruped. Seeing it climb through rubble, snow,
jumping over obstacles like a wild goat, and saving a near-fall on iced ground
at the last second (fast forward to the middle of the video) defies belief. It
feels so "animal" that I almost feel bad when they hit it to demonstrate how it
regains balance on its own.
The new version of the robot can now carry 340 pounds, which is almost triple the previous weight. It looks to me that that $10 million funding they got from Darpa has been put to good use.

Fart Club

Some friends and I have been training for a marathon and have calling ourselves "Team Brawndo" named after a fictional sports drink in the movie Idiocracy. We were going to wear Brawndo shirts during the race. Recently, however, a company has turned it into a real product, so that kinda sucks. Now we're trying to think of a new team name. This is the only thing we have so far.

Here's John's acount of how he came up with this name:

"The first time we went to the Park Pub, I called Shireesha to tell her where I was. Her response: "You're out with the guys at the Fart Club?""

Ben doesn't like it tho, so we'll see...

Company Logos Gone Wrong

Here is an example of why you should hire a real graphic designer to do your logo instead of your friend's brother's wife's nephew. Although, sex does sell, so maybe they did it on purpose...

Disc vs Disk

Help me out here... is this a "disc" or a "disk"?

Oh Snap!

I received these pix in an email a month ago and really liked them, but didn't want to delete or keep them, so I guess I'll do neither - I'll just put them here. I wish I snapped these pix... There's something intriguing about freezing a moment in time. In most pictures we take, there's no timeline. It's just "Here's me and so-and-so, at this place, doing some thing...", but these pix have a forecast of what's do come - so it's not just a frozen moment, but an apex between the past and the future.

New Kicks

Got some new runners today for my marathon training. Another pair of Sauconys. Only $81 w/ my East Side Runners discount. I did the high-tech fitting deal with the video treadmil and computer step pad thing at one store, but ended up going across the street to buy the shoes at Super Jock & Jill where they have better customer service.

Kauai

We went to Kauai recently and visited my old friend Jason Posey.

It was our first time on that island and we loved it. This island is the epitome of a tropical island; lush vegetation, beautiful beaches, clear warm water and mostly undeveloped. We didn't see any bldg taller than 2 stories. But it's the GREEN-ness that really impressed us. Everything is so green there.

I ran almost every morning with the sunrise along the ocean on this kick ass little bike trail. It was like a tropical Burke Gilman trail. Here's some shots from the runs.

Kathleen did Qi Gong every day.

One peculiar thing about Kauai is the chickens. I guess ever since the hurricane a few years back, they have roosters and hens all over the place. Everywhere you go, hear these roosters shouting their ridiculous-sounding cock-a-doodle-do's.

A couple times we saw monk seals chillin on the beach.

We drove around quite a bit and saw all the scenic lookouts. Did a little hiking. Found a great little water fall in the forest and did some swimming.

Baby Lemur

I think I'll be this for Halloween...

Chilly Hilly

Did the Chilly Hilly ride around Bainbridge Island (35 miles) with Greg, Fil, Mark (who absolutely destroys hills), and 3 other dudes thru Fil. It was a nice ride... not too chilly or hilly really. It was a great way to see the Island - beautiful scenery. The thing about the ride that really impressed me, tho, was the number of cyclists. There were 4000+and I really felt the numbers when we were on the ferry. Instead of 100 cars lined up in the stalls, you'd see 1500 bikes. And the passenger area was an ocean of spandex and dayglow. I typically feel a little self conscious when I'm walking around in my bright skin tight cycling gear, but not this day. I imagined the feeling I was experiencing was similar to a gay person's first time at a gay bar or gay pride parade. The feeling of "hey, i'm not alone... here's 4000+ weirdos who are just like me!"