Panic At The Blinkin' Fallout

Saturday morning coffee in hand we started the trek to Omaha at 9am. We had targeted 9am and left right on time! Unfortunately just after Albert Lea I realized I had forgotten the concert tickets (the main reason we were going) and so we had to do a do-over. Fortunately it was only an hour in, and our friend Christine brought the tickets and met us in Stewartville which cut off about 40 extra minutes of driving into and out of Rochester again. Thanks Christine!

We got to Omaha at about 4:45 - originally I had targeted 3, and so an extra 1:45 wasn't so bad. We met up with good friends Karli and Trevor and headed downtown and to the Old Market for some walking around by the river and dinner. There is a new pedestrian bridge across the Missouri river which was really neat, and we walked over to Iowa and back - we even stood on opposite sides of the state line :)

After dinner we drove around a little bit more (Erin had never been to Omaha) and stopped for Cold Stone ice cream.

Sunday morning after breakfast at the Cracker Barrel, Erin and I headed over to visit Grandma Bye - always a lot of fun for me, and I get to see her at least once a year if not more. Grandma recently turned 90! Grandma is the only time I get to catch up on family news too, and it's great to hear how everyone else in the family is doing.

Back to T&K's and lunch at a Philly Cheese Steak place in Bellevue, and a little relax time (watching Tiger Woods choke away the PGA championship) and off to Council Bluffs and the concert. We probably should have gone a bit earlier, as it took awhile to park, but we made it in time to see the end of "Panic At The Disco", followed by an hour of "Fallout Boy" (including a cover of "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey which got the whole crowd going) and finally "Blink 182" into the evening - they are quite entertaining! The bad part was after the concert, where the "parking lot" was a bunch of empty fields and there was no one directing traffic, so it took over 3 hours to finally get out. We were happy to get to bed at 2am.

Monday we had breakfast at the "Wheat Fields", a great little cafe, and Erin and I headed down to Plattsmouth, NE, to give Erin a brief tour of where I grew up. All the schools I went to are either torn down or have been converted to other schools, but I was able to show him where they were. It was nice to see the house I grew up in looks to be in really good shape and is being well taken care of by its new owners. We cruised up and down main street, and took the toll bridge out of town for the complete experience.

Besides boredom, the drive back was uneventful and nice weather.

OPEN!

One year, one month, and 12 days later, 50th Avenue is finally open. Only 11 months later than planned :) I was able to drive on the new road on my way home last night - it's actually a bit eerie in the dark, now that all the trees are gone, no street lights, and there are many turn lanes and corners that go into nowhere (for future roads).

A few things that were surprising - the roundabout where the future intersection of 41st St will be, there's no bridge at the bottom of the hill (they put in drainage sewers and culverts all over the place which probably makes more sense), and it's 4 lanes - I knew originally they said it was going to be 4 lanes, but then as they were building it, it didn't really look like it would be. But it is.

As I was approaching the roundabout with the other cars, I could see some of them looking a little hesitant and confused - I fully expect someone to go around it the wrong way, hopefully no accidents will happen.

Weight Loss

I've mentioned before that I read "Time" magazine, and I think it's one of the few magazines left that writes for content and not fluff. I was skeptical this week when the feature story was about weight loss - EVERY magazine, internet news website, blog, commercial, etc. seems to have an article or two about weight loss, and they all seem to focus on whatever the latest "thing" is. Fitness magazines like "Men's Fitness" are notorious for this - "do backwards situps to get ripped" or something dumb like that. Or "this supplement will burn fat 10 times faster than normal". Local TV news is probably the worst - they will make you believe that some new thing they spend 3 minutes on in the "health" section of the broadcast will fix all your problems. In reality these articles or clips are, at best, worthless by themselves, and at worst, trying to secretly push you to buy something.

Time's article talked about the relationship between exercise and weight loss. I was skeptical when I started reading, as I figured they'd start quoting studies that "prove" some very specific point or angle, which is or will be refuted by another set of studies they'll quote next month. I was refreshingly surprised to find a more general discussion about something I've sorta learned in my own life experience, and have heard from several other friends who have been down the lifetime weight loss road. Exercise doesn't seem to be a key component of weight loss. Don't get me wrong - exercise is important for good health, the benefits are many. The article points out that regular amounts of healthy exercise help protect from heart disease, improve mental clarity and release endorphins which just make you feel better in general. But it doesn't significantly help weight loss. That is counter to everything we've been told for the past 40+ years from all the "expert" wisdom and government agencies like the FDA. I'll refrain from ranting about what I think of conventional "wisdom", but I'll say that I wish that they would more often update themselves when newer understandings or ideas are available. (if you ever want to get me started on this topic, just say the words "food pyramid")

I can really only share my own experience though. The two times in my life I've lost serious weight, both were because I focused on what I was eating. One was a really bad diet (which I'd now label as basically "starvation" and was hard on my body). I lost 40+ lbs in under 4 months. The other was a more sensible, healthier diet - this one focused on carb and high-glycemic (i.e. sugar) reduction. I lost 40+ lbs in about 6 or 7 months and have somewhat stuck with the principles of it. But in both cases there wasn't massive amounts of exercise going on.

Conversely, I have run 3 marathons and the miles of training that go with them. I never lost ANY weight during any of those 3 training periods, despite running 400+ miles in 18 weeks during each training period - in fact during one of them I gained a few pounds. The two most serious periods of weight training I did? I certainly got in good shape and built lots of muscle, but I didn't lose any weight then either.

The article pointed out a few simple things that do make you think about how exercise works on us. One is that exercise probably makes us hungrier - which is probably true because you expend energy and your body wants more. If our bodies were programmed to instantly go into our energy reserves (fat) right away, then we wouldn't be hungry - but we aren't programmed that way, so we have to resist the urge to "reload" that our body wants. Will we starve without eating after we exercise? Of course not, but our DNA doesn't know that.

Another is the "entitlement" complex - the idea that we allow ourselves to indulge more BECAUSE we exercise. I know I do this - after playing basketball for two hours at the RAC every Sunday night (quite a workout), I'd go out with the guys I played with and get appetizers or dessert at TGI Fridays. I seriously doubt I ever came out ahead on those - at best I broke even. This is especially true when exercise is social - you go running with your running group and then go to Starbucks afterwards and have a muffin and a latte. If you run 3 miles, you might cover the calories of half of the muffin.

One of the last things the article mentioned was that strenuous exercise may be causing us to be still and sedentary more of the rest of the time. I can say this true for me - on the days I did long marathon training runs, I didn't do ANYTHING else the rest of the day. Not only did I feel entitled not to do anything, my body just needed to rest from the abuse I just put to it. Whereas walking, mowing the lawn, vacuuming, etc. aren't strenuous enough on your body to make it just want to stop afterward (we may still be lazy and not doing anything afterward but that's another issue :)

I would never advocate that people stop exercising. And my rule #1 always applies in things like this - do what works for you! I just know in my experience that trying to lose weight through massive amounts of exercise can be frustrating if you don't get the results you are looking for.

Trust

I have to tip my hat to Caribou this morning - as they were getting my regular morning order (coffee) ready, I realized I didn't have my wallet with me. I went out to the car and it wasn't in there, I called Erin and he verified that it was at home. I went back inside and asked if they could keep the stuff there until I got back with my wallet. The person helping me (although they all know me by name now) said just take it and catch them tomorrow. I of course came right back and paid for it after I got my wallet, but it got me to thinking about the bigger picture of trust in our society today.

I'm not stupid and naive and I know there are people that will take advantage of you. That being said, I don't think I've really ever gone wrong starting on the side of trusting people. I think some businesses see this too - you treat people like criminals and they will act like criminals. Computers and the internet are a good example - software companies, music sellers, etc. have tried for years to put protections on their stuff (the worst examples of these being DRM on music). In the end they all fail. There is going to be a certain percentage of people who steal stuff regardless of what you do, and you aren't going to make money on them anyway. But most people will pay for good quality stuff at a reasonable price. Certainly companies should pursue people for stealing, and the government should have reasonable laws in place to help try and stop this from happening. But starting with the assumption that everyone will steal from you pretty much assures that it will happen.

Maybe I'm too much of an idealist, but that's my thought for the day.

Breakfast that would have been in bed

I did not sleep well last night for awhile, and after finally falling back to sleep at 5:30am, I slept until 8:30 (which is unusual for me). In the meantime, Erin got up earlier and was preparing me a wonderful breakfast in bed - poached eggs with double bacon and holandaise sauce, grapes, and french press coffee! I ended up getting up just a little too early for him to make it upstairs with everything, but I nonetheless enjoyed everything VERY MUCH!

Yesterday between our day's activities, was some time for naps - for the kitties and Erin - a good picture of the event.

"smart" playlists

I hate to beat on Apple again, but then if they are supposed to be the leader in the personal entertainment electronics industry, I guess it's ok to complain!

One of the default "smart" playlists in iTunes groups music by decade - e.g. I have a "90's Music" playlist. Now, all the music I ripped from CD doesn't have a year filled into the year field, and that's my own problem - I knew that would be the case. However, music I've purchased from iTunes does have all its fields filled in, including year. And they're all wrong :) (ok MOSTLY wrong). It appears that, at best, the year that is filled in is the year of the album the song came from - meaning that if it was on a greatest hits album, which many older songs are, then it is labeled with that year - which is totally NOT what you would want if you were going to do a playlist called "90's music". And some of them I can't even figure out what year they have put in there - it doesn't seem to match anything.

If this is the worst problem of my day, then life is good. End of rant!

50th Ave

Finally took a little bike ride down the ever-under-construction 50th Avenue 3 blocks away from our house. They are FINALLY getting close to done - it appears to be one layer of asphault short of being finished - side trails are all done and sod is in.

Something interesting we found out that I didn't know about - even though 41st St doesn't yet go through to 50th Ave, when it does, the intersection will be aroundabout. Roundabouts are quite common in Europe and Mexico, and honestly are a very efficient way of handling traffic on the slightly less busy main roads (impractical for larger roads that really do need lights). Yet, they haven't caught on in America much. Rochester has a few - some by RCTC, one on Fox Valley Drive in the middle of a park. There's also a couple on the exit to the Medford Outlet mall from I-35. My hometown also put one in on a particularly bad intersection next to the new high school - quite a surprise when I went back last time. But the country is really still hooked on lights and 4-way stops. I hope this is a trend. I also hope they finish 41st St soon as that would be ultra-convenient for us.