Today I went to visit a buddy at Florence State Prison and got turned away from entry because I was wearing khaki shorts. Just thought I’d spread this news out to others who might head down there (as a guest, mind you).
I could say something about Big Brother Neo-Fascist Unaccountable Out of Control prison systems. That would probably not be a good idea, so I won’t.
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Here is what made this so challenging: 1) The race course started at 7,000 feet elevation, then climbed even more for most of the first two miles; 2) It was all trails and off-road roads.
Now for the good part: This was the most beautiful race that I have run in my life. After all the early heavy breathing (okay … gasping), the middle miles wound around a mesa through pines, wonderful scenery, and clean air. Returning to the original elevation over the final mile was a bit dicey, since the downhill parts begged for high-speed crashes (high-speed being a relative term, you see).
After all that, I was quite proud of my finish. My first goal was to finish the race, which I did. My second goal was to not finish last, which I narrowly met. So far so good. Here are the details:
Elapsed time: 1:21:20
Overall finish: 236 out of 243 (woo-hoo!)
Age-group finish: 11 out of 11 (oops)
This was my first race going ‘barefoot style’ in my new Minimus (New Balance) trail shoes. Once I reached the mesa, the running was easy. I learned (i.e., confirmed) that I was deficient in hill training. Actually, I have never done any hill training. I also learned that my anaerobic/aerobic fitness levels were pretty good, after having done some good interval training the past couple of months. This is why, I think, that running at high elevation was pretty easy for me, once I got past the climbing part.
All in all, it was a great weekend. Eve and I got to spend a couple of nights in a local campground in our travel trailer, accompanied by our little pooch Dixie. We enjoyed the ‘outdoor’ adventure and look forward to doing it again.
Now I have a new PR to improve on (meaning, high-elevation 10K). Gee, all I have to do is beat 1:21 and I’m good. Sounds easy from the comfort of my home office right now.
From the Tall Tales Files at Toastmasters:
Just finished the nice weekend ride around beautiful downtown Florence. Here is what the really nice scenery looked like first thing Saturday morning. Meaning, WAY before my butt got too sore!
This was the Phoenix 10K in 2010, on Sunday, November 7th. Nailed both major goals for all races: 1) finish the race; 2) don’t finish last. Bonus: beat the race host, Dr. Art Mollen. All he saw was my taillights disappearing in the distance. Did not beat Tempe Mayor Hugh Hallman, though. Those young guys!
A 10K is fun to do now and again, just to test my training. In this case, 2 or 3 runs per week of 5 miles per run. It is easier to recover from just a few runs per week instead of overdoing it like I used to do. Just paying attention to the Creakiness Quotient.
My official time was 1:05:45. I could have sworn that it felt faster than that!
That put me at 1145th place.
I could have won the 85-89 year age bracket, since there were no entrants in that bracket.
I could have won the 90-94 year age bracket, since the only entrant in that bracket finished in 1:31:41.46.
All I have to do is keep up my current speed for another 23 years or so!
The Mesa Mi Amigo’s Turkey Trot is also a fun race, so I got back into that race again this year. Bonus is getting another T-shirt. Thanksgiving Day. Maybe 2,500 entrants in the 10K. Great way to earn the dinner to come later in the day.
Hit both goals again – i.e., finished the race and did not finish last.
Official time: 1:01:56.
This put me at 17th out of 36 in my age bracket. Who were those slow old guys behind me, I wonder.
Getting up some speed now and will break that magic hour barrier with a little more training. This is the first time in a few years that I ran sub-10-minute miles (9.99 to be exact), so that felt good.
Again, I could have sworn that I was going faster. Maybe a little oxygen deprivation set in with my high speed. Who knows. That’s my reality and I’m sticking to it.
We lost Spot today. The Tempe raccoon probably paid us another visit and chewed her up almost beyond recognition.
Spot was a chicken with personality. She loved for Eve to scratch her head. She squawked every day like she was laying another egg, although none ever came out. She played tag with our new puppy, Dixie. She was a cool friend and we miss her.
The Clark Ranch is a somber place today. Henny, Queenie, and Jasmine seem to miss Spot, too. How can you tell with chickens?
Bring/s (I bring, he/she brings)
Brought (I brought, he/she brought)
Brought (I have/had brought, he/she have/had brought)
What is wrong with this picture? Think about it for a moment.
It just occurred to me, after a 3-mile noon run in the park (heat-stroke delirium notwithstanding), that it is high time to instigate a revolution. No, not Tea Party style. Something much more substantial…verbal communication.
Here is my first suggestion:
Bring
Brang
Brung
Did you bring enough money? Sure, I brang a hundred dollars.
Have you brung an umbrella? Nope, this is Arizona. (You get the idea.)
Look, E.B. White’s style manual, with its vast array of rules on grammar, etc., is just a foil. Old E.B. himself ignored his own rules for the sake of writing more effectively (i.e., communicating better).
So what if 95% of all person to person communication is nonverbal.
I’m just feeling a little rebellious today. I want to start a grammar revolution (grammatical revolution?). Anybody with me? I’m accepting all suggestions. If the dictionary keepers can approve new words every year in response to popular usage (e.g., ‘ginormous’ …yes, really), then the grammar keepers can change, too. It starts with us Grass Rooters, folks.
Dennis
Some random thoughts attacked my mind last night while I was at the ASU game against Portland State. I had not been in Sun Devil Stadium in more than a year, and I had forgotten about the quaint urinal troughs that are still in use in all of the men’s rooms there.
To think that games at this stadium have been the center of national attention – national championship games, a Super Bowl – and all the while the attending patrons were faced with such quaintness as urinal troughs.
On one hand, modern urinal courtesy is like an 11th commandment (Man Law?): Thou shalt not acknowledge the other guy next to you. Jimmy Kimmel made great fun of this commandment with his skit on the old Man Show, in which he would start a lengthy conversation with the guy at the next urinal. The most common reaction was disgust. Those zealots!
This may have something to with our cultural attitude about urinating outdoors, too. It violates city ordinances all around the Phoenix area, and getting caught gets a citation and a fine of a couple hundred bucks (or so I am told).
On the other hand, a more practical attitude these days is represented by the outdoor urinals in merry old England. These outdoor fixtures are found opposite the Charing Cross Railway Station in London, U.K. Identical fixtures may be found in Leidsplein Square in Amsterdam.
I have lots and lots more thoughts on this topic. However, I wanted to keep this brief and tasteful. Besides, I am getting a little sugar rush from my breakfast waffles right now, and I wouldn’t want to be responsible for any foggy-headed foolishness that I might write at the moment.
Besides, I think it is time for a nap.
Dennis
If knowledge is power, then it is time for you to know how your own Department of Agriculture mislabels veggies. What a provocative topic! The main issue is how veggies are defined by the USDA. Okay, I’ll admit that maybe ignorance of this truth won’t ruin your life. In fact, it may be a bother only to botanists like me.
The core topic here used to be part of a fun lecture that I gave in my classes at Arizona State University. I even gave it one time to a preschool class, although I toned down a bit for the 4-year-olds. The main point is that veggies are comprised of plant parts that do not produce seeds. The USDA, however, has different ideas about that definition. Some of the so-called veggies in the photos below do, indeed, produce seeds. There are, therefore, actually fruits. Isn’t this exciting already?
For fun, maybe you can make a little quiz out of these photos. Identify which of the so-called veggies in each of the photos below are not really veggies. HIINT: For the sake of simplicity: 2 of the 9 veggies in the righthand photo are not veggies. Which ones are they? How many non-veggies do you see in the lefthand photo? You ought to get some kind of reward for getting the right answers. So let me know what you come up with, either by commenting here or contacting me directly by phone or email. I don’t have plan for award. Students used to get point on exams for correct answer, although that won’t do you much good. So my offer is just a couple of Atta-boys or Atta-girls, or even some huzzahs if you wish.
Today I am testing a social bookmarking service, so I wanted to see how far and wide this silly little post goes. Aren’t all my posts silly and fun?
In addition, I just wanted to get these photos out, since I paid a dollar each for them.
Finally, this post is a small peak into the mindset of a professional botanist, so you can see how folks like me think. I really think this topic of veggies vs. the USDA is pretty neat. As a happy hour topic, it sure beats talking about how lousy the Diamondbacks are again this year.
Dennis
The question is, who is training whom? These cuties demand food in exchange for eggs. I am not sure who started this idea, us or them. Henny is the kingpin…er, queenpin. She rules the roost over the others. This is where we see ‘pecking’ order in operation. The two newest ones, Queenie and Jasmine, are clearly at the bottom. Animal behavior is fascinating to watch, as long as it is not my own.
Here are the girls huntin’ and peckin’ in the yard, just as they like to do all day, every day. They wouldn’t come closer to the camera because, well, they were too chicken.
Farmer Dennis