Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Loose Ends


The boys and I spent all day Saturday doing trail maintenance up at Mt. Rainier near Paradise. It was a good experience for them and they had such a great time that they want to do it every year and maybe see if they can adopt a trail closer to home.

We worked on water bars, added stepping stones in areas that will get muddy next spring and removed a "social" trail by replanting it with native vegetation (above right). They were shocked at how well the side trail disappeared with an afternoon's work. There was a pizza party afterwards at an old lodge and they should a preview of the new National Parks show that will be on PBS.

My new job has been going well. I really love the work and the challenge although today I left there feeling quite frustrated after studying for my certification test. I was much too slow taking an on-line practice exam. It's a lot of material and by the time I left I was discouraged and a bit punchy.

Training for the marathon is going okay--so far. My ankle was tender today after hitting a pothole or something trying to run in the dark last night. Tonight is my only day off from running which I needed because my legs are tired. I am using the Ellis plan that I got from him about a year an a half ago. I'm jumping into the middle of it (unwisely perhaps) so my mileage for this week will double to 50 or more including a 16 on Sunday. Am I ready for it? No. But as someone once said to me, it is my risk and so my reward. Or as Yoda said, "there is no try or try not. There is only do". So I'll go do it.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

TOP TEN LIST: Things I noticed while camping


We spent two separate weekends camping at Mt. Rainier this month. Here are the top ten things I noticed while "roughing it".

10. If you're going to buy a pop up "sun" shade for rain protection, splurge and go with the 12 foot (not the 10).

9. There are people who HAVE to listen music in the middle of the National Park and apparently assume that you want to listen to it too. These people are best described as "dipshits".

8. Growing a "camping beard" doesn't make you look outdoor macho-just old and scruffy (see pic above).

7. Coffee takes f o r e v e r to drop in one of those Coleman pots that looks like a home machine and sits on a stove burner. Plus you have to bring a thermos to store it because it doesn't keep it warm. And it takes up a lot a space.

6. Dipshits also think they are being "green" by burning their stinking garbage in the campfire.

5. Those blotches of white mildewy looking things seen on the edge of campsites but nowhere else -- are dried toothpaste spit. Camping tip: good chance those same people committed other bathroom acts in the area that are not so easily recognized.

4. Learn how to camp by watching your dog: Take a nap in the sun. Don't worry about getting dirty.

3. Dipshits may even stand around their campfire passing a bottle of gasoline back and forth and taking turns squirting it in until flames shoot back at them.

2. Consider taking a hard hat when camping in the fall. This is apparently the time when squirrels are collecting nuts by dropping pine cones from high atop a tree over your picnic table.

And the number one thing I noticed while camping:

1. Plain roasted marshmallow vs. a S'more? Plain mallow. Not even close.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Of cubes, dirty hair and politics

I used to think that I had a fairly active job (no laughing Josh!) until I moved over to being an inspector. It's still darn busy but no matter how active I am during the day there is no getting around the fact that I have been assigned a cube. Those tiny iconic markers of modern workdom. The mauve box with a bank of glaring white fluorescents overhead and a high back rolly chair. But worse of all is the computer screen set in the middle. Hours upon hours, worker bees all over the planet are wired into the network sitting somewhere in the honeycomb to input their data; a medical transcript over here, accounts receivable data over there, and yes -- fire hazards found yesterday, right here in my new cube.
But I'm pretty lucky, my data entry takes only a few hours each day and the rest of the time I'm outside. Not so for many of us-- and therein lies a problem.

You see we just weren't made for all this sitting around. We're supposed to be moving, working hard at just one all important goal- staying alive. It's only very recently that we have had the luxury of getting our meat wrapped in plastic and kept frozen just steps from the place where we will sit down and eat it. It wasn't long ago that eating plants meant walking to where they grew, when they grew, collecting them and bringing some back home for those less mobile. We had to work for everything we ate and many times, no doubt, went hungry when the supply ran low.

More recently, even as late as our grandfather's or maybe our great grandfather's time, schedules revolved around the fluctuations of sustenance. We can still see signs of this if we look closely. Calendars still show the phases of the moon, when a family can plan on staying out late to work in the fields by it's light. Summer vacation just ended for my boys, a relic of an idea where the kids would be home from school all day during the peak growing season to work the fields. A tradition held over from a time when such things were that important, but now it's origins are nearly forgotten. It wasn't that long ago we had to work our asses off just to eat.

Years ago there was TV reality show called "Frontier House" (if you have Netflix it is worth getting) where four ordinary families were followed in rural conditions that existed just over a century ago. Each was told that they would have to work hard all day every day to bring in water, cut firewood, hunt for meat and grow their own crops. In the beginning two prissy teen aged girls were grossed out after the second day because they were unable to wash their hair. But in just a few weeks the same girls were filthy, with flies on their faces and seemingly unaware of it. When you're hungry and need to work to stay alive your priorities change pretty fast. Later one of the men on the show was taken to a doctor because he had lost so much weight and it was feared he was ill. After a check up it was determined he was fine. His rapid weight loss was just a result of his calorie intake being so much less and the long physical labor he was putting in. That's the way it was back then. Not many fat people.

We don't have to work that hard anymore, at least most of us don't. We sit in our cubes and stare into the glowing box. But the impulses to scavenge and stuff something into our face whenever we see it continues in as strong as ever. Which is the simple reason 2 out of 3 Americans are overweight or obese. No real workie but lots of greazie, sugary food. If I don't run, I slide right into that overweight category. And being overweight creates a slew of health problems, from heart attacks to the current spike we see in diabetes.
Overeating and not exercising are a biproduct of our "success", but other things like smoking addiction, which I have written about before, contribute to it too.

Which brings me to this countries current health care debate. "Single payer", "co-ops", "public options" and the like are all the buzz words being bandied about. We get so fixated on who is going to pay for something that we lose sight of the real issue-making people healthier. That needs to be the starting point, not the peripheral result if all else in the new law goes right. The main focus needs to be a fresh look at keeping people healthy in the first place, not how to pay for more and bigger band-aids after they get sick. We need to stop talking about creating a huge bureaucracy that maybe, just maybe, will end up in people getting healthier. We need to come up with a plan that starts with prevention and then goes to treatment. Be proactive instead of reactive. Like my new job, if you prevent the fire in the first place then you never need to go put it out. Make prevention and incentives (such as an increase in insurance rate for smokers. High risk insured already pay more in areas like homeowners and automobile) a part of any new legislation.

And if you're going to choose to make bad decisions about yourself, such as being fat and smoking, that is your choice. But I don't want to pay for it. Before community there should always be the individual. And now if you'll excuse me, I've stared into this video monitor for way too long!

Monday, September 7, 2009

A New Plan

California International Marathon


I'm not going to be ready for the Portland Marathon. There just isn't going to be time to be in shape to set a PR there. I might still run it, or do a half, but the idea of qualifying there is just not going to happen.

So here is the plan. A plan that was always the "B" option. I got to get my butt in gear, get serious and work hard for being ready for the marathon in Sacramento on December 6th. That's 12 weeks away so hopefully I can get focused and be ready.

There are a couple of things I like about running this race. First, as the profile above shows, the course is mostly level or downhill. That will certainly help! Second, it would be nice to run a new course and one that is an A to B. And last, I have a bunch of relatives in Sac that I could use for motivation and support.

So starting tomorrow I ramp up and getting moving. Hopefully moving towards PR or a BQ.