Triple Digits

We don't live in St. George anymore, so thankfully, this isn't about the weather.

Last November I ran 95.2 miles.  We went to Michigan for Thanksgiving, and between the driving, the friends and the turkey, I lost some running time in there.

This April, I was over 83 miles by the 19th of the month. I was pretty much a lock to hit 100 miles, until I went out on the 20th and something was wrong with my foot.  I ended up getting in 6.4 miles in the last 11 days of the month to finish with 90.02.

This month, I didn't really set out to break any records, but as of today, I'm sitting at 104.34 miles for the month - my first time into triple digits.  I told Shannon at the start of the week that I was going to run 19 miles this week even if it killed me.  I was afraid to mention it too much for fear of bringing down the wrath of the fates upon my feet or knees.  After the aforementioned foot injury, all my goals for the year are pretty well shot.  I suppose if I keep turning out 90+ mile months I can still get there, but that is probably too much to expect.  The inevitable cold, or snowstorm will start limiting my running, or I'll just get worn out.  But for the time being I'm enjoying hitting a new round number plateau, and I do plan to go running for the next 2 days and get that total over 110.

How to Drive in Illinois

There is a non-zero chance that you might come to Illinois someday.  There are a fair number of states on either side of it, so even if you aren't coming to visit me, you still might be driving through.  If/when that finally happens, I wanted to help you out a little bit by letting you know how to drive here.  There are some special rules.  I don't know how much they apply to the whole state, but they seem to be true for the parts in Chicagoland that I've experienced.

1. Freeway speed limits aren't really "limits" they're more like "meaningless numbers someone wrote on the side of the road."  Every interstate I've been on here has a posted limit of 55.  No one goes 55.  I know that you're thinking that no one goes the speed limit in whatever state you live in, but you're wrong.  Some people do: they're the ones you complain about all the time on facebook.  But here, literally, no one goes 55.  Or 60.  Around 65 is where the traffic flow starts, and provided there isn't too much traffic, most people are buzzing along at 70 or 75.  Since 55 is an unreasonably low limit, it's like everyone has agreed to pretend it says 65, and then they drive their normal 5-10 over.  Of course there are people doing 80+.  Interestingly, even the cops seem to be ok with this arrangement.  No one seems to get tickets.

2. When you think a light is about to turn green, start pulling into the intersection.  Even though you've stopped 5 feet in front of the stop line, start pulling into the intersection when it seems like it's about to be your turn.  If the light doesn't turn green though, you'd better stop.  At this point your entire car is over the stop line.  But then, when it feels like the green is about to come, start pulling forward again.  Don't worry about the red light or anything, just keep scooting up.  Tonight I saw someone get at least 20 feet past the stop line this way, and they were getting very close to being in the way of traffic that was still going through the intersection, because, you know, they had a green light.  I don't understand the reasoning for this creeping, but if you want to blend in with the locals, you'd better do it, too.

3.  Don't merge until the last possible moment, even if there are dozens of signs warning you of what going on.  You folks from Utah are already pros at this, so just keep doing what you've always been doing.  You Michiganders, just turn off your brain and drive like you're the most important person in the world, even if you end up slowing down everyone including yourself.

4.  Smoke.  Make sure your window is down with your cigarette hanging outside.  And make sure you're stopped in front of me at every single red light. If you have friends, surround my car on all sides, particularly if it's a nice day and I have the windows down.

5.  Make sure you drive as much as possible.  The way I figure, this must be what the Chicagoans are doing.  How else can they ensure that there is a traffic jam on the freeway on a Saturday morning?

Behold

Over the last few nights, we've made it through Samuel the Lamanite's famous speach in chapters 13, 14 and 15 of Helaman.  There are some things that are easier to behold when you're reading out loud, and boy, did I behold one.  Behold, it was very apparent, at there is a certain word that Samuel likes to use repeatedly.  It felt like in nearly every verse, behold, there it was.  So, let's all pull out our calculator watches, do some quick math and behold whether I'm right, or just beholding a mirage.

I pulled out Samuel's full speech, which consists of 3711 words.  He uses "behold" 53 times, or once every 70.0 words.

The internet tells me that the Book of Mormon has 268,163 words in it.  Or 267,332.  Or 270745.  It seems the internet isn't quite sure, but it doesn't really matter.  Sticking with that first number, I'll take out the 3711 words that are Samuel speaking for 264,452 non-Samuel words.  scriptures.lds.org says that there are 1499 instances of "behold" in the Book of Mormon, so once we take out Samuel's 53 uses, there are 1446 left to go around.  The math reveals that this is once every 182.9 words.

Divide those two numbers, and we behold that Samuel is using the word "behold" at a rate 2.6 times that of the rest of the Book of Mormon as a whole. Lo and be - well look at that.

Martian

After taking months to read a book, I needed something that would make me want to read, which I found in The Martian by Andy Weir.

(I figured you might think I made the whole book up unless I included a picture of it.)

The book has been aptly described as "Apollo 13" meets "Cast Away".  (Sadly, the movie adaptation set to come out next year doesn't have Tom Hanks.)  Basically, astronaut Mark Watney gets left behind on Mars when a mission is aborted and he is presumed dead.  He has no way to contact anyone, and enough food to last 300 days.  The good news is that another manned mission to Mars is planned.  Bad news: it's not for 4 years and they'll be landing 2000 miles away.  Mark is a resourceful and surprisingly chipper guy who sets about figuring out how to not starve to death, how to contact Earth and how he's ever going to survive as the sole inhabitant of an entire planet.

The book is written by a nerd who does a good job of addressing nerdy things like calorie consumption, heat generation, solar power collection and things like that.  The book is set in the not-so-distant future (a few decades from now perhaps) and doesn't resort to any sort of magical technology break through to explain anything, which I appreciated.  Sure, we have to take for granted that NASA has invented the best super glue in the galaxy, but that's a small leap to take.

So, it entertained me, and made me want to keep reading.  There is some language in there that I wouldn't repeat in front of my grandmother or anyone else, but considering it's a book about someone stranded on a planet a hundred million miles from home, I didn't think the language was excessive.

Living a Luxury Vacation

The other night, Shannon and I were talking about vacations, specifically lavish, exotic, all-inclusive type vacations.  We're not too familiar with those, opting for more of the drive-a-zillion-miles-stay-at-Grandpa's-house sort.  We talked about what a sweet gig it would be to get a fabulously wealthy person to take you on vacation so you can watch their kids, or carry their luggage, or let them step on your back as they get in and out of cars.  Then, I figured, maybe they need someone to stay in their enormous house with giant TVs, every channel imaginable and the 3,000 square foot kitchen.  You know, so someone is there to bring in the mail and all.  I'd do that job for a good price.

And then I asked this question: How many people out there would view living in your house and having your disposable income as a fabulous vacation?

But now back to thinking about our standard of living.  I live in a luxury apartment.  It has 4 freaking bathrooms.  It has hardwood floors.  It has a balcony.  I've got a magic lever on my refrigerator that makes ice appear whenever I want it.  I can control the temperature in all the rooms except the girls room.  (Seriously, too hot all summer and too cold all winter in there.)  It's amazing.  Now, half of these things are a fluke of what was available to rent when we were moving here.  I really don't want 4 bathrooms, but there they are, and the price was the same as places with 2 or 3 bathrooms, so, it's not like I'm paying extra for it.  But you get the point.

We also go on wild shopping sprees.  Julia has a perfectly functional bed, but we're on the verge of buying her a new one.  Why?  Just for fun!  The girls want a bunk bed, and it's likely they'll get one soon.  I can make arguments about Ella needing a bed in the not-so-distant future (she's still in the converted crib) (and no, she doesn't need the bed because of any demand for the crib, but because she's 4 years old and can't sleep in the crib forever) and the girls want a bunk bed.  Part of me is a bit concerned that the bunk bed won't be as fun in practice as it is in theory - but even in spite of that, off we go to buy a bed we don't need.  (From IKEA, granted.)

Even in the richest country in the world, there are millions of people who would spend a week in my home and feel like they're in a luxury resort.  And they'd take my budget for clothes, toys, eating out and bunk beds and for them it would a fabulous shopping spree.  And to those millions of Americans, we can also add this cute kid:

It's probably worth remembering more often that life is pretty good.  The standard of living across the entire world is as high as its ever been, and I'm somewhere around the 90th percentile globally.  (The poorest 2% of the US is in the 55th percentile, globally.)  Perhaps rather than complaining about my leaky faucet at home, I'll remember to be a little more amazed at everything that I do have.

I guess I should fix the faucet, too.

The Three Musketeers

I just finished reading The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas.  Occasionally, I get in my mind that I should read some famous book or another.  Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't.  (Robinson Crusoe, I'm looking at you.)  The Three Musketeers barely worked out.

I'd like to dedicate this book review to Shannon, who dutifully kept renewing the book at the library as I made my way through.  It turns out there is a limit to how many times you can do that, though, and we hit that limit.  So we took the book back, but since the girls are at the library multiple times a week (because, you know, Julia's read 267 books so far this year) they checked out the same copy a few days later.  I can promise that no one else in St. Charles has read The Three Musketeers this summer.

The thing is, I liked the book.  I didn't want to give up on it, but at the same time, I didn't want to read it enough to chose reading it over things like checking facebook on my phone.  So, that's about as hearty of a recommend as I can give.

I went into the book not knowing much about it.  Sadly, there isn't a girly looking guy who spends the whole book shrieking "D'Artagnan!"  Apparently Disney can only get you so far in life.  The book can be quite silly at times, which I didn't expect.  At one point D'Artagnan receives 4 excellent horses and gives one to his friends, Athos, Porthos and Aramis.  Within 24 hours, they have each managed to sell, gamble or eat the horses, but each manages to keep the saddle.  They have an extremely happy-go-lucky outlook on life as they race around Paris dueling and plotting.

Unfortunately, I just never got all that "in" to the story.  Perhaps if the book didn't have to reach across 170 years and a translation to get to me it would have had a better chance.  I wish I could have mustered more excitement for it, but both in reading it and reviewing it it gets a good, hearty, "meh".

One of THOSE people

We went out to eat at Red Robin yesterday for Shannon's birthday.  Because when it's your birthday, you deserve unlimited steak fries.  "But wait" you say.  "You can't eat meat this month."  Right you are.  But like most places these days, Red Robin has items on their menu for the meat-free.  Items indeed.  I believe we counted 2.  Certainly you could ask for salads without the chicken, or things like that, but we were there for the fries, so we both got the vegetarian burger.  I thought it was pretty darn tasty.  No one would mistake it for beef, but I don't mind.  If I really wanted beef, I'd eat beef, and I'd rather that something taste good (which it did) than try too hard to taste like something that it's not.  So, the meal was a success.  (Ella's behavior on the other hand . . . . let's just not talk about it.)

It was interesting to see some of the challenges that a true vegetarian would have to deal with, particularly when you have to deal with other food restrictions on top of that.  As you recall, I can't eat fish, lentils, kiwi, peas and various types of beans.  And it's the beans that can be tricky, because they can often be used in vegetarian burgers.  So, we had to be the people asking what was in the vegeburger patty.  When we got to that point I was outside the restaurant with Ella (I said I didn't want to talk about it) so Shannon had to do the asking.  The waitress brought out the ingredients list and Shannon declared it to be ok.  (And it was.)

We survived the night out (Ella just barely) and proved that even if you aren't eating meat, it is still totally possible to eat enough stake fries to make yourself feel unwell.

Meatless update

7 days meatless and all is well.

I hate to say that I told you so, but things have gone pretty much as I expected them to.  Shannon does virtually all the meal planning and cooking, so all I have to do is show up to dinner and eat what she puts in front of me.  I dare say that we haven't missed the meat at all.  We'd regularly go a day or two or three without eating meat before, it's just that now we've strung together 7 days of it, likely a record.

We both agree that the most likely reason that we'll fail in our venture is from absent mindedness.  If you stop me on the street and offer me some jerky, I'll possibly eat it before I remember that I've given up meat for the month.  Unfortunately, people rarely offer me tasty treats while I'm walking down the street, so I'm probably safe for the month.

Thus far I haven't found myself missing meat at all.  We had the missionaries over for dinner on Monday and we had breakfast for dinner - pancakes, scrambled eggs, fruit and sausage.  It was a little bit odd to be cooking something for someone knowing that we weren't going to eat it, but really wasn't that big of a deal.

I stepped on the scale this morning and it says I've lost a pound or two.  Just like the original measurement, this was done post run when I would have been a bit dehydrated.  (But I like feeling dehydrated.)  I did a short study of my weight a year and a half ago and found that there was about a half pound variation in my weight on a day to day basis, so the measured weight loss is somewhere on the edge of being real.  (It wasn't a terribly well done scientific study, so I never published the results.)

Tidbits (made of soy, I promise)

Day 1 of the meatless adventure.  I weighed myself in at 162 pounds, which is a couple of pounds lower than I expected.  It was post run and pre-breakfast, so I was probably short a pound of water.  Even still, I would have anticipated being about 165.  I don't expect to lose weight doing this, but if 2 pounds want to disappear, I guess I won't say no.

We're about to start a 6 day stretch where we break 80 every day.  Summer sure is tough, isn't it?  The hottest day gets all the way up to 84.  It seems like we spend more days with a high below 80 than above, which is just fine by me.  After a winter where we went multiple days without even breaking 0, I think we've earned a nice cool summer.

BYU has scheduled a football game at Northern Illinois which is only 30 miles from my house!  The bad news is that I'll have to successfully not move for 6 years before the game actually happens.  The last time I lived in the same place for 6 years was from ages 11-17.

All the Meat you care to Eat

At the Blockburger home, we're apparently bored enough that we've decided to do a little bit of culinary experimentation: we're going meat-less for a month.

Now, before the internet explodes, I want to explain what this is and isn't.

This is not part of any grand plan to "convert" to vegetarianism.  At the end of this, I fully expect to return to my omnivorous ways.

This is not done for any particular ethical reason.  I recognize that there are many instances of animals that are used for meat being treated very poorly.  I also recognize that environmentally meat is a less efficient way to feed ourselves.  These are not my primary motivation for this venture, however.

This is fueled significantly by my own curiosity.  I know several people who are vegan or vegetarian, and they seem to like it.  I also know a lot of meat-eaters, and they seem to like it.  I've tried the meat-eating thing for a few decades, so I figure I can spend a few weeks without meat to see what it's like.

This is also fueled by the idea that meat is "to be used sparingly" and "should not be used, only in times of winter, or of cold, or famine".  I recently read somewhere a quote where [prophet]'s son was describing his father's health in general and added that [prophet] didn't eat meat in the summer.  (Clearly, this is a quote that you'll want to be slipping into your next Sunday school lesson.)

Now some details.  You'll note that I describe this as going "meatless" rather than be vegetarian.  The difference is that it is pretty easy to know what's meat and what isn't, but somewhat harder to avoid all the things that a vegetarian would traditionally avoid.  A lot of things have gelatin in them (marshmallows, twinkies, many yogurts) and then there are cheeses that have enzymes from animal stomachs, sauces and dressings with anchovies in them, and orange juice with omega-3 stuff that comes from fish.  So the goal is to cut out 100% of the "meat", and then as much of the "other animal products" as I deem reasonable.  Also, I don't want to spend an entire month worrying about every single item that I put in my mouth.  Was this granola bar made on machinery that also processes crackers that use an animal based fat?  Does this cake mix have lard in it?  Where is the L-Cysteine in this bread from?  It's all too much for me.  I'll make my own reasonable efforts at avoiding animal products and leave it at that.  (This bit is left entirely to my discretion.  If you want to be in charge, you can mess with your own diet for a month.)

One thing that I have no intention of eliminating from my diet is dairy and eggs.  They are simply too tasty.  Yogurt is one case where I will very likely be consuming gelatin, and I'm ok with that.  I'm not a huge fan of any of the non-cow milks (soy, almond, rice, etc.) that I've tried, so I'm sticking with the cow juice for my cereal each morning.

I'll be blogging about all this, in as much as there are any interesting results from the experience.  What do I expect?  Fairly little, really.  I don't anticipate losing a bunch of weight, or seeing dramatic changes in energy level or general well being.  We generally claim that we don't eat that much meat, but it's not like I keep track all the time.  The build up to this adventure has made me pay more attention to how much meat I do eat, however.  As I'm writing this, in my last 14 meals, my total meat consumption 10 slices of peperoni.  But then our last meal of the month was hotdogs, because we had some and needed to use them up.  (Again, we're cheap.  It's apparently one of our core values.)  I still think it's fair to say that I'm a "light" meat-eater.  I'll also add that we won't be forcing the girls to give up meat.  They don't really love most meats, but if they want a hot dog, they can have one.  (Seriously, we've got hot dogs to spare.  Anyone want to come over and eat them for us?)

I think that pretty much covers things.  I'm not completely sure what to expect, so I don't know how my blog-reporting will go.  I generally don't care much about food, so I suspect this whole thing won't be very difficult.  I guess we'll find out over the next month.