There has got to be a better way!

The FDA recently approved Alli for use, one of the first over the counter weight loss drugs to have this distinction. What they don't readily tell you is that users typically lost 1 pound per month over a control group in clinical experiments. And then there are the side effects! The side effects are glorious! This is taken directly from the Alli website:

alli™ works by preventing the absorption of some of the fat you eat. The fat passes out of your body, so you may have bowel changes, known as treatment effects. You may get:

• gas with oily spotting
• loose stools
• more frequent stools that may be hard to control

The site also states:

You may feel an urgent need to go to the bathroom. Until you have a sense of any treatment effects, it's probably a smart idea to wear dark pants, and bring a change of clothes with you to work.

and

You may not usually get gassy, but it's a possibility when you take alli. The bathroom is really the best place to go when that happens

Gas with oily spotting? That is so awesome......

I wish my marathon was 4 miles long!

I just got back from my run today, 4 miles in 32:32, or 8:08 per mile.

Running on empty

I went for my long run last week on Sunday. I ran 14 miles. It was brutal! Mile 10, 11, and 12 were especially painful as they were on a stretch that has a crazy steep hill. Let's just say that when I drive up this hill I have to floor it to maintain 50 MPH. It's steep and long. But by the time I got there I was already tired and that hill looked like Mt. Everest. I think I walked a good portion of those 2 or 3 miles. I tried running, but it was only coming in short spurts and it was hot and all I had was warm water to drink that I got from an outdoor water fountain at the park. But I made it and then finished with a strong final 2 miles (mostly flat). I am excited about this weekend run, because I honestly felt great for the first 9 miles, and this weeks run is 9 miles I believe. I do have to focus on today's 4 mile run and tomorrows 7 miles at my "race pace." And then I have another 4 miles on Thursday. Here is a graph from the 14 mile run showing the elevation change, I got this from my cool GPS running device that provides so much cool and useful information!
The numbers are hard to read but on the horizontal axis you'll see the distance by miles. The vertical axis has elevation The hill starts at 4,260 ft and peaks at 4,470, which if I can add, multiply, divide, and estimate closely gives me a 2.25% grade over 1.75 miles. STEEP! Just for reference that is one foot of elevation gain every 44 feet, and the "big hill" in my marathon is 1 foot elevation gain every 66 feet.

Never Underestimate

Never underestimate what a poor college kid will buy off of Craigslist! We sold our old couch and loveseat! Yeah!! Happy Happy Joy Joy! We had them listed for 50 bucks, and on Saturday these two college guys who just moved here from Rochester, NY (no kidding!) took a look at both of them and said they would take them. They called this morning and said they had a change of thought and wanted to buy just the loveseat for $30. I thought to myself if I let them get away I'll have that damn couch forever cause it was the one with grape jelly embedded in it from little miss Sydney. So I asked him if he would just take both of them for $30 and put the sofa on the porch or something, he was so excited.

New Sofa and Loveseat

We bought a used sofa and loveseat set off of Craigslist today, I'm sitting on them right now actually! I have put our old sofa and loveseat up on craigslist, but have not had any hits yet. Since they are in desperate need of a good cleaning I thought $50 was a fair price, but now I am starting to think we are going to have to try to just give them away. If I don't hear anything on them by tomorrow, I'll try the free route on Craigslist.

If that doesn't work, I don't know what we'll do. Any ideas?

91,000+

91,000 have signed a petition to get Al Gore on the ballot in the 08 presidential ballot, and encourage him to run. You too can sign up here, www.draftgore.com. Even without campaigning for the 2008 presidential nomination, Al Gore runs far better than any of the declared Democrats against the Republican front runner in a new poll in Pennsylvania.

Cool Stuff

I was reading an article in this months Popular Science magazine about a company called Solix Biofuels which grows algae and then separates the fat from the algae, and then produces biodiesel. The company is stationed in Ft. Collins, CO and actually works closely with the New Belgium Brewing Company! Solix imagines fields of algae growing in tubs and then, when the algae has been fattened up, they break it apart and make biodiesel. One of the most fascinating facts they present is that for the U.S. to be self sufficient in producing enough biodiesel to replace its petroleum needs we would need to produce 140 billion gallons of fuel. It would take 3 BILLION acres of fertile land to produce that much soybeans, or 1 BILLION acres to produce that amount in canola. The U.S. only has 434 million acres of cropland, not nearly enough for soybeans or canola. However, to produce 140 billion gallons of biodiesel from algae we would only need 95 million acres. And since the basic ingredients are water, air, and sunlight an algae farm can be sustained in environments where a traditional farm would fail, such as the Arizona desert. It's a cool technology, and one that I hope takes off. Completely renewable, and possibly a great intermediary step between fossil fuels and some other fuel like nitrogen or electric power.

Star Wars

Ok, I'm a Star Wars geek. I love all 6 movies (could do with out Jar Jar Binks) and I generally like all things Star Wars. When I saw these 2 clips I was laughing pretty hard, so I thought I would share them with you.

The first one is after the Death Star is destroyed and Darth Vader calls Senator Palpatine. Here is a good Wiki-description of Palpatine - Palpatine is a main villain in Star Wars fiction. In the series' time line, he first appears as a key politician in the Republic. Unbeknownst to the public and Senate, he is also Darth Sidious, a powerful Sith Lord and a master practitioner of the dark side of the Force. He initiates and manipulates the Clone Wars to destroy the Jedi and create the totalitarian Galactic Empire, with himself as dictator.

The second clip is much shorter, and is of Darth Vader being a jerk. That cracks me up, I don't know why but it does!

Ok, I know I said 2 clips but this one is funny too. It needs to be seen as it pokes fun of W, and it has a Star Wars theme.

Ok, so now I've spent the last hour watching many of the Robot Chicken episodes. Most of them are funny, if you have the time I'd suggest the Calvin and Hobbes, the Smurfs, Mario in Vice City, and the Inspector Gadget one was pretty good.

Painting

I know you guys really missed my blogs about PAIN-ting, so I thought I would entertain you with some more painting blogs! We painted again today, so far it was the second and final coat on the underside of the carport. The carport is by far the worst place to paint because all of the work is above your head and there are beams that also need painting. Bridget is threatening to paint for another hour and a half, but I don't know what else there is to paint in the dark green color. She muttered something about doing touch ups on the rest of the house, I think she is crazy. So all that we have left is 1 coat of cream colored paint around the trim. I did the first coat of that in less than half a day, maybe I can polish that off tomorrow. And then the shutters need their little accents of cream paint, and then the new doors and door frames also need painted. But then after that we will be really, and truly finished painting the outside of our house. Then I'll take some pictures for you! But I still hate painting!

Hippie Stuff

Watch this video clip from CNN about a carbon neutral house in England. It is pretty cool, and has some interesting points. I think the notion of having all new construction being carbon neutral by 2016 is a great target, but I don't know how feasible that is (especially when going green adds 40% to the cost of a house). Don't get me wrong, I'm all for it and I'd like to incorporate some of these advances into my next house. Anyway, I thought it was pretty cool.

Triathlon Results

Here are the results from Today's triathlon. We had a great time, we actually camped out Friday night at the campground where the swim was held. It was fun, the kids had a good time and did really well sleeping in the ole tent. So my goals for this race were to improve on my running time from the first Tri I ran this summer, and on Thursday they sent out a roster of the racers and there were 9 racers in my division....so I wanted to finish in the top third of that group. Unfortunately I read the divisions wrong and they actually kept me in the 25-29 year old group (last Tri I was in the 30-34 group), even though they based my age on how old I'll be on 12/31/07 which will be 30. So I thought I was in the 30-34 age group. Anyway, enough with the blah blah!

Here are the impressive statistics:
I swam 360 yards in 6:53.53 (18th/114) (faster than 85% of total the field!)
Biked 11 miles in 35:51.26 (18th/114) (faster than 85% of total the field!)
Ran 3.2 miles in 29:19.28 (9:27.5 per mile)(68/111, 3 people DNF)
And with my 2 transition times added in that makes a total of 1 hour 16 minutes and 22 seconds.
Within my age group of 25-29 year old males I was 5th out of 7 people, I had the fastest swim! Overall there were 111 competitors (male and female) and I finished 29/111 faster than 74% of the other racers. Of just the males I was 26th/63 faster than 59%. I was 14:53 behind the #1 finisher, not too bad.

So if you look at my goals, I didn't finish in the upper third of my age group but I did finish well within the upper third of the overall field. And I improved my run time by 1 minute 48 seconds, which is a pretty big jump for about 10 weeks.

Here is the oddity of the race. I finished in 29th place, I am 29 years old, we stayed in campsite 29, and my old radio number at the jail was 29. Crazy, huh?

Hybrid SUV's

I read an interesting article on CNN yesterday about hybrid SUV's, especially the New Chevy Youkon XL hybrid which is scheduled to be released later this year. People see the EPA fuel numbers and scoff because they are not nearly impressive as a hybrid Toyota Prius or hybrid Honda Civic. But what the article cleverly points out is that for families who actually use an SUV to haul kids and kids' friends around, and all of their stuff, and may possibly need a vehicle that handles well in the snow.....just trading in their 7 passenger SUV for a Prius or a Civic just ain't gonna happen. The article points out that a hybrid SUV that gets 20 MPG will save about 237 gallons of gas per year over the same traditional fuel based model which nets about 17 MPG. When you compare that to a hybrid Nissan Altima that gets 34 MPG compared to the 26 MPG a traditional Altima will save 136 gallons of gas per year, even though the difference is 8 MPG. If an owner of a traditional large SUV went to a Prius Hybrid the fuel savings would be 611 gallons of gas per year. Big SUV's guzzle gas, but often times families are dependent and can't easily make that switch. Anyway, that is the summary of the article...read it here. What do you think?

Paris Released?

What gives? Paris Hilton was released from jail after only three days of a 23 day sentence. They said it was because of an unspecified medical condition and gave her an ankle bracelet monitoring thingy. What a crock! I'm sure she is really going to learn her lesson in her Hollywood mansion with her Blackberry, cable tv, dog (rat), and gourmet food. Yeah real tough sentence there, I could only be so luck as to serve a punishment like that.

The humorous part to me was that she said several times that she was going to use the time to reflect on her life.....guess there wasn't much to reflect on!

Doing battle with the Mormons

If you read one of my posts a few posts back you'll realize that I have a weakness when it comes to people coming to the door to try to sell stuff. Apparently the same goes for the Mormons who go door to door to try to convert people. Yesterday morning I had a visit from 2 missionaries trying to get recruits, I don't think they will be back to take me! One of their first questions was what religion I was. I answered and then they asked about Bridget, I told them that she was spiritual...but didn't believe in any one "God" or and one religion. Their eyes grew to approximate golf ball size. One of them asked "well doesn't that cause problems in your relationship", I said "no not all..Why would it?" At this point their eyes jumped up to the size of tennis balls. They next asked if I went to church, I said that I didn't. They said that (I think he meant according to the Mormon religion) it was not enough to believe in God and live a good life, that you needed to attend church. That irked me a bit, so I think I got a little defensive. He said if we joined the Mormon religion we could spend the rest of eternity together in Heaven, I asked "why my religion wouldn't allow me to do that?" He really didn't answer that, but he went right into scripture quotes. And he explained that the bible was written by the 12 apostles and that Joseph Smith was the 13th apostle, and that he received his teachings directly from God. This raised two questions that I asked him, first I asked why God had waited nearly 1900 years to contact a 13th apostle? Since Smith founded the Mormon religion late in the 1800's. My second question was more of a statement about Smith receiving his visions by placing 3 stones into a hat and then placing his face in the had and staring until he received these teachings. I sort of smirked and they're eyes were softball sized. They again didn't have much to offer, but handed me a pamphlet about the religion.

I hope that these were two rookie missionaries. Hopefully they will return to the mother ship and send in the reinforcements. I like to talk religion with the Mormons because they are so brainwashed that it really isn't much of a debate. One other thing, I'm not trying to say being Mormon or any other religion other than me is a bad thing or that I'm right and they are wrong. I just think if you are going door to door to recruit for a religion, you are going at it the wrong way. People should want to join a religion because that religion speaks to them, it makes sense to them, and it shouldn't be contingent on a bunch of rules like you can't drink caffeine, alcohol, can't have tattoos, and many more things that the Mormons profess.

Wendy's

In a pinch before our trip to the zoo yesterday we needed to make a stop for lunch. Bridget and I had a conversation about how well Wendy's was doing at providing a healthier menu. The kids both got kids meals, and instead of fries Sydney had yogurt and Aiden had orange slices. Instead of soda they had 2% milk. Bridget and I each had taco salads with low fat sour cream and dressing. For their main course the kids did split a burger and chicken nuggets, which are obviously not the healthiest....but neither was my root beer float or Bridget's frostee.

Even though we didn't eat everything low fat or low cal, at least we cut fat and calories out of what we would have usually ordered. I would probably go for a double cheeseburger with bacon, fries, and a diet coke...look at the difference:
Taco salad - 380 calories - 19 grams fat - 28 grams carbs - 26 grams protein
Burger option w/ fries - 1050 calories - 53 grams fat - 107 grams carbs - 41 grams protein

All of that info came from www.fastfood.com, which I just found on Google. It seems like a pretty useful tool in researching what you eat. Maybe if I would have researched my meal before hand I would have found something even healthier!

Big Day #2

This coming Saturday I will race in my second triathlon of the summer. It is pretty close tot he same distances as my last one, so I should get a good chance to upgrade that running time of my last race. I finished that last run in 31 minutes, which just killed me in the rankings. I did really good in the swim and the bike, but had people beating me by 5 or more minutes. I'm hoping that this race will go better and I also plan to consume some energy gel during the ride which seems to work well for me.

I ran 4 miles this morning, and I have 7 miles to run tomorrow at my "race pace" so that should be a tough workout. Although I did run my 4 miles this morning at 8:34 pace and my race pace is 9:05 per mile. It seems like the long weekend runs are really helping my shorter distances, 3 miles seems almost like a warm-up!

Great Sunday Hike

I took the kids on a great hike today. I got the trail from a book we have called "Best Hikes with Children in Utah." (I highly recommend this book by the way, I think it is a series and you can find them in different states) I chose 2 hikes, the first one was described as a great family hike. It was a 1 mile walk around Silver Lake, but the entire hike was boardwalk around the lake. The second hike started 1/2 way around Silver Lake and was a trail to Lake Solitude. That trail had 400 feet of elevation change and was 1.5 miles each way. So, with Aiden on my back and Sydney walking the entire way we made it. We had a nice picnic lunch at the top and had many positive comments from passers by....most amazed that I would adventure up to the top with 2 kids all by myself. Sydney even carried her own Camelbak hydration pack, the one she had was really my adult sized pack filled to the max. She did so great, she never once complained about the water. There were times when we needed to take breaks, and we went at Sydney's pace...but I would say it was an amazing feat for a little girl who is not even 3 years old yet! Aiden enjoyed it when I stopped and let him touch the trees, he liked the different textures of the aspens, pines, and of course the free ride up and back! Check out more pics at www.browntography.com!

Random Thoughts

Random thought #1 - What the heck is going on with the rental movies recently. The last 2 weeks there have been crap! The last good rental we had was Apacalypto, but there isn't much else. For people that rent 2 to 3 movies a week, we count on decent rentals. Nothing, nada, zip, zilch. Of course this has given us a chance to watch some movies from our DVD's from our collection. We recently watched the Matrix trilogy for the first time in years.

Random thought #2 - Could you imagine walking your dog along the street and humming your favorite tune in your head while thinking about how perfect the day is. When all of the sudden a dog crashes through a 6 1/2 foot tall wooden fence and begins attacking your dog. This recently happened, except Buddha was the attacker. I was in the backyard playing with the kids, I think he was protecting his family. Both dogs were fine, the other dogs owner was a bit shaken. Animal Control came out and seemed a bit more concerned that Buddha wasn't registered, than the fact that he busted out of a fence and attacked a dog.

Random thought #3 - My best friends are all getting pregnant. Nick and his wife.....knocked up. Another VERY good friend and his wife are knocked up (but it is a secret that I'm not supposed to share).....Maybe it's a sign that Bridget and I should have baby #3? She doesn't think so, she says it isn't a sign...I disagree.

Random thought #4 - My marathon training is going very well. I talked to a friend who has completed a few marathons, she said my times are right on track to meet my goal of a 4 hour marathon. My day to day feelings are that there is no chance I'll hit that mark, but when I look back at my times from the first weeks of training my times are getting faster! Maybe there is hope! This weekend I hope to return to park city to run my long run, this weekend it backs off a bit (only 9 miles).