Brain Eating Amoeba

Just when you thought it was safe to swim in a lake up to your nose. Along comes a brain eating amoeba that goes in through your nose and eats your brain. How crazy is that? Here is the article. I guess it attacks boys more than girls, and young rather than old. It really sounds like science fiction, but it is real....scary stuff.

Operation Can Scam

Straight out of Seinfeld circa 1996, a smuggling ring was busted in Michigan for taking pop cans from Ohio and cashing them in. When they were busted they had over $500,000 in their possession! I guess it was actually some retailers in Ohio who could take cans that consumers returned to them and turn around and sell them to the people who brought them to Michigan. The State Police director in Michigan says this type of fraud accounts for 13 million in losses each year! Charges filed were maintaining a criminal enterprise (felony with 20 year max sentence) and fraud (felony with 5 year max sentence). Oh Seinfeld, you magnificent bastard (a line from the show), if you only knew what you started 12 years ago! The only thing missing was the mail truck that Kramer and Newman packed full to drive their cans to Michigan.

Finished with our trip

Today I gave the camper a good cleaning and let it sit in the sun for a few days to dry out. Should be all clean for next trip! I have also uploaded a ton of pictures to my picture site, www.browntography.com there are new pictures under each person as well as a bunch of scenic photos under the Utah Slideshow. And finally, during the trip I dropped my digital camera and broke the LCD screen. I was majorly bummed to put it lightly. Today I checked into Canon's repair site and they said my repair would be free since it is under warranty! All I had to do is pay for shipping, so it is on the way, hopefully I'll have it back in a few 2 weeks or so.

Fruit Flies

I need your best remedy for getting rid of fruit flies. We had some before we left for vacation, but we took extra steps to make sure that we cleaned everything up and didn't leave anything out while we were gone. We got home expecting it to be bug free, nope! They were still here. Now it seems like they are going crazy again. We cover our fruit so that they can't get to it, and we keep our trash can lid closed...still get them though. Some of the web stuff I have read says to find the source where they are breeding and eliminate the source, but that is what we thought we did before the trip! Also seems like a lot of sites recommend making a trap with cider vinager and an empty 2 liter bottle. I guess that is my next route, unless anybody has a better suggestion.

Composting is a bunch of crap!

I don't really mean that...well I sort of do. I have not kept you very up to date on my compost heap that I started on Earth Day back in April. Well....actually a lot has happened to my compost heap. For starters I moved it. What a pain in the neck that was, it was located under our plum tree in the corner of our yard. Problem was it never got any sun. So I moved it to another corner now it gets equal time in the sun and shade! Then today I made the biggest effort yet! So I removed all of my clippings, scraps, leaves, etc out of the composting pen. I took it all the way down to the dirt. Then I soaked the ground and added about 8 inches of my compost back in then I soaked that layer. Then I added 4 parts soil and 1 part cow manure to make a dirt layer. And I soaked it. Then another layer of clippings, another of soil, another clippings, another soil, another clippings layer, and then topped it off with a nice layer of soil. I soaked it all at each layer, we had a ridiculously dry summer here so I developed another theory that my compost heap didn't get any water. So now that I have all of this done I am hoping that the heap will take advantage of the next week in the 90's and heat up and start doing it's thing. I might leave it alone till next spring, although I have read that you can turn it in the winter. I am going to bag my leaves from the upcoming fall to use next composting season. So for now I think I am done composting...it is all wait and see I guess!

See Ya!

Next week you will not be receiving any wonderful posts from me, because we will be taking a trip to scenic Moab, UT. We are going to check out Arches National Park, and Canyonlands National Park. Should be a good trip, and our first extended trip with our pop-up camper. Hopefully we will get some cool pictures for you, see ya next week!

Take on Peyton

I found this cool NFL trivia game where you take on Peyton Manning 1 on 1. It isn't too tough and occasionally you will see a repeated question, but it is still fun. I just drummed manning 52-14! I have had it lock up on me a few times especially at half time, but it seems to work better early in the morning and late at night. Check it out here, and see if you have the NFL knowledge to beat Manning.

Update I just beat him 44-6!

The Biggest Loser

One of my favorite shows returned to TV last night. The Biggest Loser is a reality TV show where contestants compete to lose the most weight both as a team and individually. The first shows of the season aren't the best ones, but later in the season you really begin to see these shells of former people working around. Past contestants have lost over 200 pounds, mind you they started at 400+. If you are trying to lose weight, or think you might want to but lack the motivation...give this show a try you might get really inspired. I know I did last season!

The show comes at the prefect time, right with the start of Phase II....Which I am officially renaming to Project 1/1/100, which stands for 100 pounds lost by January 1, 2008. I lost 8 pounds last week, which was way too much, I was shooting for 3 and will continue to do so. But I guess losing extra isn't all bad, but it was more than I'd like to see...slow and steady wins the race!

Fit Day

I found this really cool web site for keeping track of what your nutritional, exercise, and overall goals. It is called Fit Day, check it out here. I used it religiously when I lost the 75 pounds mostly because after my weekly weigh ins I would rush to the computer enter my new weight and check out the graphs. It made the weight loss seem more concrete. You can type in the foods you ate, entering the info off of the leable is best but time consuming. Most of the foods on their system are pretty close. I also like the way it shows you your nutritional breakdowns of protein, carbs, and fats. Overall I think it is a great site, and it is free. If you are looking to drop a few pounds check it out.

Phase II

Many of you have read on my blog that I have lost some weight recently. I lost 75 pounds from November 06 to April o7. Then I decided to train for the marathon and found it difficult to eat well and run so many miles. So this week marked the beginning of "Phase II" of my weight loss plan. And this time Bridget is joining me! This makes it so much easier because you have the support and help of another person. So of those 75 pounds that I lost, I gained 20 pounds back. But 15 of those came in the month of April when we had 3 sets of out of town guests back to back to back. I gained 5 pounds a week because of poor diet and reduced exercise. So If you took out those 15 pounds I really only gained 5 pounds during my marathon training. That 5 pounds could very well have come from the week after the marathon where we were eating out a lot and I was not exercising one bit, trouble is I didn't step on a scale around the marathon so I have no idea. Anyway, I am set on losing at least 40 pounds by Christmas. That comes out to about 3 pounds a week for the next 17 weeks. I have stepped up my workouts at the rec center this week and have been watching what I eat.

Leave it to the scientist in Bridget to measure our food. It actually isn't as painful as I thought it would be. I have been measuring everything I eat, and it is amazing how much more I would eat before measuring. For example, Cereal. I would sometimes fill a bowl with probably 4 servings, and wouldn't think anything of it. Problem is I do that for everything! So weighing is giving me a better perspective of portion sizes, and also allowing me to see that I can survive off of the correct amount of food.

We will keep you posted on our hopeful success!

Ah-Ha

Hal Higdon, who is an expert runner, running coach, and the author of the training program I follower for the marathon had an interesting take on post marathon training. He says "Some experts suggest resting one day for every mile you run in the marathon, thus 26 days of no hard running or racing! Others suggest one day for every kilometer, thus 42 days rest."

Perhaps this explains why I hurt so much after running 4 miles on Monday! Duh, I am supposed to be resting!

The Park City Marathon had roughly 8 miles of downhill to the finish line, then I read this..also from the Hal Higdon site: Hill courses, particularly those with downhills near the end such as Boston, do more muscle damage than flat courses like Chicago.

Ouch

So today (wednesday Sept. 5) is 11 days post marathon. I have tried to run a few times since then and each time I return hurt. I think my body is rejecting running for a while! I ran 3 miles at run club last week and my feet were killing me which is a pre-marathon injury I had called plantar fasciitis which is a sharp pain that shoots from the heel through the arch of the foot. It wasn't so bad, every step felt like I was running barefoot on broken glass...yeah not so bad! Then I ran on Monday with Bridget. My hip just started killing me toward the end of the run. So bad that I couldn't even finish. It still hurts today and I have not run a single step. Bridget says that one is called hip bursitis. Bridget asked a fellow doctor who has done a few marathons and she said that she only does 1 per year and then takes a solid 3 months off from running after the race. She does other exercise instead of running, then she gets back into things after a nice rest. I think that is the direction I am headed. I even tried the Elliptical trainer at the gym today and could barely manage 25 minutes with my hip, so I rode the bike for the remainder of my workout with no problems. I just can't ride an exercise bike every day...I'd go nuts! Our swimming pool is closed for yearly maintenance until Sept. 17th, so swimming is out for a while. I think I may swim a lot this winter instead of run. Well I am sure this is boring you by now as it seems sort of rambling. I'm going to go now. Ok Bye!

New Photos

After a long hiatus from updating my photo site, I finally got some new photos up. We went to the Red Butte Gardens this morning and got some good pictures. Sydney had a blast running around on the paths, they had some large snake topiaries that kids could actually run through. Aiden spent a lot of time in the stroller, but he got out toward the end and played on these giant stone lizards in the kids gardens. Enjoy the pictures, even a short video clip of the kids playing chase. Click here to check them out!

Interesting Info

I found this article today and kind of laughed to myself. Several years ago I heard that it was "safer" to sign your credit cards with "see photo ID." So I did, and then it turned into an experiment of sorts. Stores would rarely even look at the back of the card, rarely did they ask for ID. I have been rejected at the post office, they actually made me sign my card in front of them....as if a crook couldn't just do that since they didn't ask to see any ID. So that was fine then I got new cards a while back and I didn't write anything on them. I know this is probably not the best practice, and I think I'll be signing them as soon as I am done with this post. But after months of using an unsigned card, I have not had a single request to see my ID or see a signature. Crazy!