So again, I slack...the only difference this time is that Sharona has slacked as well. Nonetheless, I think I will come through for all those that are information mavens...(by the way, I always refer to myself as a "geek", but did you know that "geek" has a really weird definition?....Weekly word coming up!).
Up, we have a study done by the Pew Charitable Trust on Mormons...since I am mormon, Sharona is mormon, and well, probably 90% of the people that know this blog exists are mormon, the post has significant value to those reading it. You can find it here.
Enjoy the read...I found some things very interesting, like the difference in education standards between converts and lifers. I also thought the ideological differences between single and married mormons was very interesting. I was hoping they would break that down to a gender coefficient, because that would have added a very interesting dynamic to the reading of numbers (just who is swaying whose beliefs?).
The ohter fairly shocking notion was that 35% of the mormon population believes that the Bible should be interpreted literally. I thought (perhaps to my self dissolusionment) that the Bible was to be read figuratively or allegorically and rarely literally (except for perhaps historical facts and what not)....and have you noticed that I use parantheticals way to much to make ridiculous inoccuous and wasteful asides?
Anyways, enjoy...and hope to share more often.
P.S. Tell me that Elder Holland's talk at conference wasn't just amazing? And also, now that the Priesthood sessions are all on the web....how many women are watching them?
Monday, October 5, 2009
Monday, September 14, 2009
INTJ - You can call me Bob the Builder!
So, for reasons not to be disclosed, I took a personality test the other day, and while I don't know how accurate or inaccurate they are, we'll go for it for now.
If you go over to http://www.humanmetrics.com/, you can take the Myers-Briggs Jung test for free, and it will give you 4 little letters and a score corresponding to each letter. The bigger the number, the more you possess that specific trait.
After I took the little test, the little site told me I was an INTJ...or rather Introverted, iNtuitive, Thinking, Judging. Well, let's just say that 4 little letters aren't all that indicative to me of anything other than 4 little letters, so I went to do a bit more research and found this little site: http://typelogic.com/intj.html Whatever your personality type, it will give you a reasonable idea of what someone interprets those characteristics to mean.
Now, normally I don't get into all this classification mumbo jumbo. It seems simplistic, limiting, and well, odd to me, but nonetheless, I am going with it. After reading the description of INTJ, I thought it was fairly accurate, or accurate enough for me to give it more than a 50% reliance factor, and probably more like a 60 - 70% reliance factor...which in my book, is really pretty high.
Anyways, if you have free time, or comments on the Myers-Brings...would love to hear it. According to the personality test, apparently I have picked a very apt career, which is nice to know, and am destined to conquer the world, which we all know is my life long dream and ambition.
Oh and apparently if you are an ENFP or ENTP, you and I should get together for a drink or something! :)
If you go over to http://www.humanmetrics.com/, you can take the Myers-Briggs Jung test for free, and it will give you 4 little letters and a score corresponding to each letter. The bigger the number, the more you possess that specific trait.
After I took the little test, the little site told me I was an INTJ...or rather Introverted, iNtuitive, Thinking, Judging. Well, let's just say that 4 little letters aren't all that indicative to me of anything other than 4 little letters, so I went to do a bit more research and found this little site: http://typelogic.com/intj.html Whatever your personality type, it will give you a reasonable idea of what someone interprets those characteristics to mean.
Now, normally I don't get into all this classification mumbo jumbo. It seems simplistic, limiting, and well, odd to me, but nonetheless, I am going with it. After reading the description of INTJ, I thought it was fairly accurate, or accurate enough for me to give it more than a 50% reliance factor, and probably more like a 60 - 70% reliance factor...which in my book, is really pretty high.
Anyways, if you have free time, or comments on the Myers-Brings...would love to hear it. According to the personality test, apparently I have picked a very apt career, which is nice to know, and am destined to conquer the world, which we all know is my life long dream and ambition.
Oh and apparently if you are an ENFP or ENTP, you and I should get together for a drink or something! :)
Monday, September 7, 2009
A blast from the past
So, I have been a slacker of late and I honestly am not sure I have a very good excuse. Life has been busy, but no more busy than usual....perhaps, it is because I have been away from home more rather than just working at home (shhhhh....don't tell anyone!)
Anyways, last Monday and Tuesday, I took the young men in my ward on a little camping trip...oh the good ol' days. Anyways, I was conversing with the other adult on the trip...wonderful guy, and we were reminiscing of a camping trip we went on when I was like 12. It was probably one of the craziest, but most memorable trips I had as a boy scout. And lo and behold, he had pictures and journal entries of the trip.
I don't normally post pics or anything like that, I mean Sharona is the expert on that, but I guess I'll do it this time. Here are a few pics from all those years back....enjoy!
This is all the junk we carried for the few days we were out there. This is in Adirondack Park, New York on a 4 day trip.
This is Scott Whale, Mike Janosko, and myself, paddling in what was probably the craziest canoe trip ever!!
We were freezing...and I mean freezing! Let's just say fires are real nice. The funny part about this campout...Jim Perucca brough a CHAINSAW!!! That is where all that fantastic wood came from. Unfortunately, he also sank his boat, and so we had to go diving for food!! :)
Ahhhh...this is the crew....the crazy bunch we were. Norm Swindler is missing from the crew, but eh, you get the idea. I was a little tike, I was.
Anyways, last Monday and Tuesday, I took the young men in my ward on a little camping trip...oh the good ol' days. Anyways, I was conversing with the other adult on the trip...wonderful guy, and we were reminiscing of a camping trip we went on when I was like 12. It was probably one of the craziest, but most memorable trips I had as a boy scout. And lo and behold, he had pictures and journal entries of the trip.
I don't normally post pics or anything like that, I mean Sharona is the expert on that, but I guess I'll do it this time. Here are a few pics from all those years back....enjoy!
This is all the junk we carried for the few days we were out there. This is in Adirondack Park, New York on a 4 day trip.
This is Scott Whale, Mike Janosko, and myself, paddling in what was probably the craziest canoe trip ever!!
We were freezing...and I mean freezing! Let's just say fires are real nice. The funny part about this campout...Jim Perucca brough a CHAINSAW!!! That is where all that fantastic wood came from. Unfortunately, he also sank his boat, and so we had to go diving for food!! :)
Ahhhh...this is the crew....the crazy bunch we were. Norm Swindler is missing from the crew, but eh, you get the idea. I was a little tike, I was.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Mammoth Cave National Park
This past weekend, Ben and I drove down to Cave City, Kentucky as part of a general effort we are making to adventure and see the amazing sights around us in this new place called Ohio. Cave City is about a three hour drive south of Cincinnati, so we decided to leave Friday after work and stay in a hotel/motel for the night and see the sights on Saturday. As we drove into the ever-luxurious Econolodge late Friday night, we were a little shocked by the parking lot. First we saw this:
And when we got back to the parking area by our little room, we saw this:
I know what you're thinking. It's a sure sign the economy is in the dumps when all the corvette owners in the world have to stay at the EconoLodge. Alarming signs of the times, indeed! Well, take heart my dear friends. It just so happens this is probably just an indication of sold out rooms in plusher digs. It was the annual Corvette Show down in Cave City this past weekend. Who knew? Here's a great shot of one of the older beauties, taken the next morning:
Ben and I woke up early. We wake up early most days (though not so early for some people, I'm sure) to get to work on time. Unfortunately, we find more and more these days that this habit we've made dies hard on days even when we don't have work. Tragic. And since Kentucky is an hour earlier than we are (we're the last hanger's on to the East Coast time zone even though we're significantly far away from the coast) we found ourselves bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 6:30 am, rearing to go. We showered, got ourselves ready and went down to enjoy the free continental breakfast. I ate a bagel and Ben found his pancakes inedible, and the fruit juice was questionable, so we ended up doing less enjoying than we would have liked. We decided to supplement Ben's breakfast with McDonald's Egg McMuffins -- breakfast of champions.
And then off to Mammoth Cave! They had several tours starting early that we were excited to try out. We wanted to get there in plenty of time to get a ticket.
Ah, well, sometimes the best laid plans go to waste, and the not so well laid plans, well.... you can imagine. As it turns out the note at the bottom of the Mammoth Cave Website where it reads, "*Not available by reservation. Tickets can only be purchased the day of the tour at the visitor center," doesn't mean you can't buy tickets before. It just means the one tour on the list that has an asterisk of the 20 tours they have available can't be bought ahead of time. When we got there at 7:45, all the tours I had any interest in were sold out. I was devastated and, to be honest, totally ticked at their website information that was (in my humble opinion) misleading. I had driven 3 hours for this! All the good tours are gone!?!? Seriously?! I wanted to just turn around and go home. Ben, however, calmed me down just enough to buy a couple of tours worth of tickets to the less challenging, but still available. I was pretty certain I wasn't going to like them. But we were already there. And though I might not end up enjoying them, Ben might.
On our first cave tour, we had a nice small group of people and we were made aware of the reason for the Cave network's name. We already read on the website that the caves were the longest system in the world, with 360+ miles of caves inside. But the caves are not only extensive. Individually they're areas inside can be huge. The first room we were in was a 1/4 acre large. Here are a few cool pictures from our first tour:
Above is a picture of the "natural opening" to the cave. It's pretty huge.
When they were in the caves in the last 1700's, early 1800's they used it to mine saltpeter to make gun powder. You can see some of the equipment they brought down in this picture.
I think these two pictures above give you a good idea of how huge some parts of the inside of this cave are. Or they would if I could make them any larger. :)
Overall, aside from it's extensive and sometimes huge tunnels, there wasn't a whole lot more to see in this cave tour. Our guide, Bobby, reminded us that Mammmoth Cave is not famous for its stalactites, stalagmites or other amazing features in the cave. It is famous because of it's size. So there you go. We had all been made aware we could stop looking for more wonderment. And I found it relieving to know, despite the fact I wasn't in awe of the cave's beauty, I also "shouldn't" be in awe of it.
After this two hour tour, Ben managed to get me to go back for one more, through another area of the cave. I was trying to raise my spirits up to be enjoyable company, but I did a pretty crappy job, if I do say so myself. It wasn't terrible, but I'd say it may have potentially ben slightly reminiscent of pulling teeth for me.:) For a lot of the tour I just didn't say anything, so to minimize the negativity that might come out of my mouth. If you can't say something nice....
Looking back, I think I should have known I wouldn't like this very much. I don't know what I was thinking with all these guided tours. I don't even like being guided through aerobics class. And on our second tour, our group was so large that I felt like I was in a never-ending line for a ride at Disneyland, with the tour group of over 140 people. Only with cave tours, the line IS the ride. I'm used to caving where you get "down and dirty" and have to twist yourself into funny shapes so you can get out. I came out clean as a whistle from these two tours and I think I might have had to duck my head and shift my hips a couple times. Somehow, not quite the same effect.
Not to say it was all a waste. Or painful. On the bright side, The second tour ended up having some of the coolest formations we'd seen and 80% of the formations there are to see at Mammoth Cave (jackpot, I guess). Here are a few pictures of what they call Frozen Niagara:
Our pictures don't do this feature justice. It was much cooler in real life. One part of the tours I enjoyed (yes, I did end up enjoying at least one part. Maybe two.. I'll have to think about it) was a little bit of comic relief in the naming of various parts of the caves. For example, they had an area in one of the caves where they had installed toilets. The called this area the "The Great Hall of Relief". Below is a picture of an area they like to call "Fat Man's Misery."
He he he he. They make me laugh.
And here is a shot of how they would "smoke" their names into the ceiling. I checked one of the covers on the lights they had in the cave to see if the names weren't on the cover of the light instead of actually smoked onto the ceiling (so, I can be a little bit of a skeptic sometimes..). I got in trouble for that. You can't stray too far from the tour, apparently. Woops. I like getting into trouble sometimes.:)
I complained to Ben a couple times how we were doing family friendly vacations and we weren't even a whole family yet (meaning we have no children). He was a bit surprised I didn't like this activity as much as I didn't like it when I had honestly told him before that I had a good time at Mt. Rushmore, which is also very kid-friendly. I reminded him that when I went to Mt. Rushmore I WAS there with children -- my niece and nephews. See, if you take your kids to they little, shallow wave pool, you can very well have fun with them there. But you don't usually see a lot of adults hanging out by the little, shallow wave pool of their own volition, do you? No-- because it's not as fun to do kid stuff without the kids, in my opinion. And I was banished to the kiddie tours without having any kiddies. And I just didn't like it very much.
This, aside from a much anticipated, luxurious dinner, was the big event to celebrate Ben's and my 1st anniversary. I spent the activity sulking and complaining (with mild signs of amusement at times) while Ben tried to pacify me and enjoy himself. Sometimes, the best laid plans... you get the idea. Let's hope this isn't some foreshadowing of the eternity that awaits us. I think the celebratory event was very non-reflective of the year that preceded it, thankfully. And just maybe, next year, instead of the outdoors, I'm gonna suggest we check in at the Four Seasons and go on a shopping spree. I think that would be sure to elicit better moods from me. :)
And when we got back to the parking area by our little room, we saw this:
I know what you're thinking. It's a sure sign the economy is in the dumps when all the corvette owners in the world have to stay at the EconoLodge. Alarming signs of the times, indeed! Well, take heart my dear friends. It just so happens this is probably just an indication of sold out rooms in plusher digs. It was the annual Corvette Show down in Cave City this past weekend. Who knew? Here's a great shot of one of the older beauties, taken the next morning:
Ben and I woke up early. We wake up early most days (though not so early for some people, I'm sure) to get to work on time. Unfortunately, we find more and more these days that this habit we've made dies hard on days even when we don't have work. Tragic. And since Kentucky is an hour earlier than we are (we're the last hanger's on to the East Coast time zone even though we're significantly far away from the coast) we found ourselves bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 6:30 am, rearing to go. We showered, got ourselves ready and went down to enjoy the free continental breakfast. I ate a bagel and Ben found his pancakes inedible, and the fruit juice was questionable, so we ended up doing less enjoying than we would have liked. We decided to supplement Ben's breakfast with McDonald's Egg McMuffins -- breakfast of champions.
And then off to Mammoth Cave! They had several tours starting early that we were excited to try out. We wanted to get there in plenty of time to get a ticket.
Ah, well, sometimes the best laid plans go to waste, and the not so well laid plans, well.... you can imagine. As it turns out the note at the bottom of the Mammoth Cave Website where it reads, "*Not available by reservation. Tickets can only be purchased the day of the tour at the visitor center," doesn't mean you can't buy tickets before. It just means the one tour on the list that has an asterisk of the 20 tours they have available can't be bought ahead of time. When we got there at 7:45, all the tours I had any interest in were sold out. I was devastated and, to be honest, totally ticked at their website information that was (in my humble opinion) misleading. I had driven 3 hours for this! All the good tours are gone!?!? Seriously?! I wanted to just turn around and go home. Ben, however, calmed me down just enough to buy a couple of tours worth of tickets to the less challenging, but still available. I was pretty certain I wasn't going to like them. But we were already there. And though I might not end up enjoying them, Ben might.
On our first cave tour, we had a nice small group of people and we were made aware of the reason for the Cave network's name. We already read on the website that the caves were the longest system in the world, with 360+ miles of caves inside. But the caves are not only extensive. Individually they're areas inside can be huge. The first room we were in was a 1/4 acre large. Here are a few cool pictures from our first tour:
Above is a picture of the "natural opening" to the cave. It's pretty huge.
When they were in the caves in the last 1700's, early 1800's they used it to mine saltpeter to make gun powder. You can see some of the equipment they brought down in this picture.
I think these two pictures above give you a good idea of how huge some parts of the inside of this cave are. Or they would if I could make them any larger. :)
Overall, aside from it's extensive and sometimes huge tunnels, there wasn't a whole lot more to see in this cave tour. Our guide, Bobby, reminded us that Mammmoth Cave is not famous for its stalactites, stalagmites or other amazing features in the cave. It is famous because of it's size. So there you go. We had all been made aware we could stop looking for more wonderment. And I found it relieving to know, despite the fact I wasn't in awe of the cave's beauty, I also "shouldn't" be in awe of it.
After this two hour tour, Ben managed to get me to go back for one more, through another area of the cave. I was trying to raise my spirits up to be enjoyable company, but I did a pretty crappy job, if I do say so myself. It wasn't terrible, but I'd say it may have potentially ben slightly reminiscent of pulling teeth for me.:) For a lot of the tour I just didn't say anything, so to minimize the negativity that might come out of my mouth. If you can't say something nice....
Looking back, I think I should have known I wouldn't like this very much. I don't know what I was thinking with all these guided tours. I don't even like being guided through aerobics class. And on our second tour, our group was so large that I felt like I was in a never-ending line for a ride at Disneyland, with the tour group of over 140 people. Only with cave tours, the line IS the ride. I'm used to caving where you get "down and dirty" and have to twist yourself into funny shapes so you can get out. I came out clean as a whistle from these two tours and I think I might have had to duck my head and shift my hips a couple times. Somehow, not quite the same effect.
Not to say it was all a waste. Or painful. On the bright side, The second tour ended up having some of the coolest formations we'd seen and 80% of the formations there are to see at Mammoth Cave (jackpot, I guess). Here are a few pictures of what they call Frozen Niagara:
Our pictures don't do this feature justice. It was much cooler in real life. One part of the tours I enjoyed (yes, I did end up enjoying at least one part. Maybe two.. I'll have to think about it) was a little bit of comic relief in the naming of various parts of the caves. For example, they had an area in one of the caves where they had installed toilets. The called this area the "The Great Hall of Relief". Below is a picture of an area they like to call "Fat Man's Misery."
He he he he. They make me laugh.
And here is a shot of how they would "smoke" their names into the ceiling. I checked one of the covers on the lights they had in the cave to see if the names weren't on the cover of the light instead of actually smoked onto the ceiling (so, I can be a little bit of a skeptic sometimes..). I got in trouble for that. You can't stray too far from the tour, apparently. Woops. I like getting into trouble sometimes.:)
I complained to Ben a couple times how we were doing family friendly vacations and we weren't even a whole family yet (meaning we have no children). He was a bit surprised I didn't like this activity as much as I didn't like it when I had honestly told him before that I had a good time at Mt. Rushmore, which is also very kid-friendly. I reminded him that when I went to Mt. Rushmore I WAS there with children -- my niece and nephews. See, if you take your kids to they little, shallow wave pool, you can very well have fun with them there. But you don't usually see a lot of adults hanging out by the little, shallow wave pool of their own volition, do you? No-- because it's not as fun to do kid stuff without the kids, in my opinion. And I was banished to the kiddie tours without having any kiddies. And I just didn't like it very much.
This, aside from a much anticipated, luxurious dinner, was the big event to celebrate Ben's and my 1st anniversary. I spent the activity sulking and complaining (with mild signs of amusement at times) while Ben tried to pacify me and enjoy himself. Sometimes, the best laid plans... you get the idea. Let's hope this isn't some foreshadowing of the eternity that awaits us. I think the celebratory event was very non-reflective of the year that preceded it, thankfully. And just maybe, next year, instead of the outdoors, I'm gonna suggest we check in at the Four Seasons and go on a shopping spree. I think that would be sure to elicit better moods from me. :)
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Hi, My Name is Dora
Some days, I wonder. Really, I do. I wonder about the mysteries of life. I wonder what I need to do. I wonder why I do the things I do... or don't do. And I wonder, especially lately, how I forget some things.
For EXAMPLE -- I was chaperoning at a Stake Youth event for church a couple of weeks ago. It was kind of a new thing. I hadn't chaperoned before. And I was a little flustered with all these young teens in my car. That was new too. And I was driving somewhere I'd never been before. And maybe it'd been a long week (we'll just say it was). Well we got there. All the girls got out and enjoyed the hamburgers and got ready for the pool party. I sat down and started to chat with one of my fellow YW leaders, Debbie. Momentarily, she left me. Moments after that, my cell phone rang.
Debbie: "Sharon?"
Sharon: "Yeah."
Debbie: "Did you know you left your car running?"
Sharon: "Are you serious?"
Debbie: "Yeah. It's running."
Sharon: "No."
Debbie: "Yeah. It's totally running. Do you want me to take your keys out and bring them to you."
Sharon: "Um... Yes?"
So I don't think I've ever done that before. I wonder how on earth I did it. There's a certain method, a kind of ritual, we each have to systematically park, get out of, and leave a car. I do it every day.... multiple times. And for me, that ritual usually entails important steps, such as turning off the engine, taking the keys out of the ignition and locking the door behind me as I leave. I skipped ALL of those steps. It's a wonder I was able to make it OUT of the car, all things considered. I mean, really!
But like I said, it was just that once. Right? I was totally out of my element. I was thrown off! No big deal.
Well, maybe. But then something else happened:
A few weeks ago, Ben and I went to go see the last Harry Potter. I love Harry Potter. I've read the whole series. Only once, of course, but I enjoyed that one time with each book immensely like a gorging addict. After we saw this last Harry Potter movie, Ben (who has not read the books) asked me how it all ends. And I thought. And then I thought some more. Then I replied I didn't know. He assailed me for being a liar. How could I refuse to tell him!?! Keep him in the dark?! How cruel could I be?!? But I protested to his accusations and stated over and over again, as honestly as I could, that I couldn't remember at all how it ended. I remember enjoying reading the last book. But I couldn't remember for the life me how the story went. Odd. I HAD read it, after all. You'd think I'd remember SOMETHING.
To remedy this problem, this week I went back and I read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. This is a rare thing for me to do. It's normally hard for me to have patience with rereading a book because I am so familiar with the sentences. I just end up breezing over the whole thing because I pretty much know it already and thus have a general policy to not read books twice. But since I had this unmistakable case of amnesia in regards to this particular book, I made an exception. Even so, I had a sneaking suspicion it would all come back to me as I went through the chapters, just like reconnecting with an old friend.
I Couldn't have been more wrong. SHOCKING! The whole book ending was totally shocking ALL OVER AGAIN, as I'm sure it was shocking to me the first time. It was just like th first time (though I can't really remember that either. Go figure)! I couldn't believe I'd forgotten that story! Those twists! That's crazy. I'm crazy.
Thus, I wonder some days. As I pondered over these to recent mental mishaps, I remembered seeing Finding Nemo on TV a couple weeks ago. Ah, Dora. Now there's a character I suddenly find myself able to truly identify with.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Top Ten Reasons To Be a Big Banker
10. People want to give you their money.
9. As you recite your self-affirmations each morning, you can say with conviction, "You are too big to fail." The government agrees with you.
8. Sheryl Crowe will play at your business party.
7. You just bought Hugh Heffner's house on the cheap and surprise, surprise, the price tag came with a bonus package of 3 playmates, included with purchase.
6. Your employer promises you bonuses without you having to do anything at all. You can even do them harm, and they will still give you the money.
5. The government will also give you lots of money to do whatever you want with, and will then feign "frustration" later at their "surprising" inability to tell you how to use it.
4. Getting sued is no big deal. It turns out, settling for $15 million isn't so bad when you're subtracting it from $4 billion.
3. If you should feel animosity and hatred from the entire US population, you can always buy a small country of your own to rule and move there.
2. If your branch down-sizes, you can always go to Plan B -- a hot new seminar series -- how Bernie got away with it for so long, and how you can too.
1. Shareholders have an inability to discern the difference between being a top talent and being overpaid, but think that both are good, thus ensuring that you will never have to go to Plan B.
Banks are poopy. I want my money back.
9. As you recite your self-affirmations each morning, you can say with conviction, "You are too big to fail." The government agrees with you.
8. Sheryl Crowe will play at your business party.
7. You just bought Hugh Heffner's house on the cheap and surprise, surprise, the price tag came with a bonus package of 3 playmates, included with purchase.
6. Your employer promises you bonuses without you having to do anything at all. You can even do them harm, and they will still give you the money.
5. The government will also give you lots of money to do whatever you want with, and will then feign "frustration" later at their "surprising" inability to tell you how to use it.
4. Getting sued is no big deal. It turns out, settling for $15 million isn't so bad when you're subtracting it from $4 billion.
3. If you should feel animosity and hatred from the entire US population, you can always buy a small country of your own to rule and move there.
2. If your branch down-sizes, you can always go to Plan B -- a hot new seminar series -- how Bernie got away with it for so long, and how you can too.
1. Shareholders have an inability to discern the difference between being a top talent and being overpaid, but think that both are good, thus ensuring that you will never have to go to Plan B.
Banks are poopy. I want my money back.
Friday, August 7, 2009
Weekly Word, "Albatross"
Albatross
Function: noun
Definitions:
1) any of a family (Diomedeidae) of large web-footed seabirds that have long slender wings, are excellent gliders, and include the largest seabirds
2) a : something that causes persistent deep concern or anxiety b : something that greatly hinders accomplishment: encumbrance
I read this in an article that was describing how home mortgages may now seem to their owners. Oh, this poor, sad little economy. In the middle of all this, it makes me kinda grateful I never had much to lose. You can't lose what you don't have.
Can anybody think of a more inspiring, or at least funny, way of using that word? I like it. But I prefer not to dwell on it in its current context. Help a sister out, will ya?
Function: noun
Definitions:
1) any of a family (Diomedeidae) of large web-footed seabirds that have long slender wings, are excellent gliders, and include the largest seabirds
2) a : something that causes persistent deep concern or anxiety b : something that greatly hinders accomplishment: encumbrance
I read this in an article that was describing how home mortgages may now seem to their owners. Oh, this poor, sad little economy. In the middle of all this, it makes me kinda grateful I never had much to lose. You can't lose what you don't have.
Can anybody think of a more inspiring, or at least funny, way of using that word? I like it. But I prefer not to dwell on it in its current context. Help a sister out, will ya?
Monday, August 3, 2009
When "Just Do It" Doesn't Get It Done
I know you're all dying to know how it's going with the whole running gig. Ok, so you're not. Too bad. It's my blog. Mine and Jefita's, I mean.
Well, I've been up and down and all around -- literally and figuratively. My last blog post on running was coming after a high of just having completed a 10.5 mile long run without having stopped. Nike's mantra was working for me. I told myself I would do it, I tried and I conquered.
Unfortunately, the mantra became nothing more than a gimmick the next week. I'd set out to increase my miles to 13. To my disappointment, I only got to 10.5. And I walked part of it. Not only did I not improve, but I did worse. Sad? To say the least. I felt pretty discouraged and as I surmised, discouragement is totally toxic. If I couldn't "Just Do It", how was I going to get it done?
Well, the next couple weeks I didn't train so hard. Not all because of discouragement -- I had a family reunion the week after that run. I did run once, but I really thought better of it on most days and decided I was going to primarily vacation and visit with my family (the least I could do since they flew in from Europe and the West Coast and Ben & I drove 15 stinking hours just so we could all be in the same place for a while). So I didn't do much running. The week after that I got myself to the gym, but I only ran once and did cross training instead on the other days. My legs felt so tired still. And I didn't do a long run on the weekend. I didn't want to. I wasn't motivated. As I sat back and nursed my fatigued legs and my hurt pride, I was thinking of post-poning my marathon entry till the next year. Or maybe I'd just do a 1/2 marathon again....
Well, I've been mulling it over. And I talked to a few fellow runners. And I got some advice. And I learned/remembered a few things. 1) We all have good weeks and bad weeks. Just because I had one, terrible, long run doesn't mean I'm finished. Who knew?! 2) I need to run fewer freaking hills!!! for peat sakes. I really am going up and down on every road all the time. They are huge and they are everywhere around our neighborhood. And they are so unforgiving. A lovely friend from my church, Maura, recommended a nice stretch of road that is good, long and totally flat just 1 1/2 miles away from my home.
So I decided I could give it another go. However, I did a few things differently. After all, failing once was bad enough. If I failed to run 13 miles twice, it was going to be a rough blow. I had to give myself as much room for success as possible.
1) I divided to conquer -- Ok, I didn't really plan this. It just kinda worked out this way. But we can pretend it was all part of my brilliant training scheme. I was invited to run with some friends in a local 5k, so I did. But I ran it kinda fast because I'm kinda stupid and very competitive. It's great for race times, but not so good if you want to run long. So I did that in the am and when I got done, I could feel that my legs needed to rest before I did more. So I tried for the other 10 miles around 6pm that night.
2) I got rid of the a majority of the hills and worked that new fabulous flat road into my route. It was so HEAVENLY. I LOVE jogging on flat ground. I'd all but forgotten how nice, friendly and easy it is.
3) I skipped cross-training that week. I needed all my energy for the task at hand.
Well, it worked. I did it. Granted, it was in portions. But it WAS within 24 hours. That's a start. So maybe I haven't given up yet.
Another thing I'm rethinking -- all this cross-training. Ok, I was only working it in like once a week. But I think it wears me out a little too much. I might go back to just running 3x's a week and calling it good.
As you can see, training is proving to be a little trickier than I thought. Truth be told, I am not an energizer bunny. I wear out. SO, as I play around with this crazy marathon idea, I'll let you know how it goes.
Well, I've been up and down and all around -- literally and figuratively. My last blog post on running was coming after a high of just having completed a 10.5 mile long run without having stopped. Nike's mantra was working for me. I told myself I would do it, I tried and I conquered.
Unfortunately, the mantra became nothing more than a gimmick the next week. I'd set out to increase my miles to 13. To my disappointment, I only got to 10.5. And I walked part of it. Not only did I not improve, but I did worse. Sad? To say the least. I felt pretty discouraged and as I surmised, discouragement is totally toxic. If I couldn't "Just Do It", how was I going to get it done?
Well, the next couple weeks I didn't train so hard. Not all because of discouragement -- I had a family reunion the week after that run. I did run once, but I really thought better of it on most days and decided I was going to primarily vacation and visit with my family (the least I could do since they flew in from Europe and the West Coast and Ben & I drove 15 stinking hours just so we could all be in the same place for a while). So I didn't do much running. The week after that I got myself to the gym, but I only ran once and did cross training instead on the other days. My legs felt so tired still. And I didn't do a long run on the weekend. I didn't want to. I wasn't motivated. As I sat back and nursed my fatigued legs and my hurt pride, I was thinking of post-poning my marathon entry till the next year. Or maybe I'd just do a 1/2 marathon again....
Well, I've been mulling it over. And I talked to a few fellow runners. And I got some advice. And I learned/remembered a few things. 1) We all have good weeks and bad weeks. Just because I had one, terrible, long run doesn't mean I'm finished. Who knew?! 2) I need to run fewer freaking hills!!! for peat sakes. I really am going up and down on every road all the time. They are huge and they are everywhere around our neighborhood. And they are so unforgiving. A lovely friend from my church, Maura, recommended a nice stretch of road that is good, long and totally flat just 1 1/2 miles away from my home.
So I decided I could give it another go. However, I did a few things differently. After all, failing once was bad enough. If I failed to run 13 miles twice, it was going to be a rough blow. I had to give myself as much room for success as possible.
1) I divided to conquer -- Ok, I didn't really plan this. It just kinda worked out this way. But we can pretend it was all part of my brilliant training scheme. I was invited to run with some friends in a local 5k, so I did. But I ran it kinda fast because I'm kinda stupid and very competitive. It's great for race times, but not so good if you want to run long. So I did that in the am and when I got done, I could feel that my legs needed to rest before I did more. So I tried for the other 10 miles around 6pm that night.
2) I got rid of the a majority of the hills and worked that new fabulous flat road into my route. It was so HEAVENLY. I LOVE jogging on flat ground. I'd all but forgotten how nice, friendly and easy it is.
3) I skipped cross-training that week. I needed all my energy for the task at hand.
Well, it worked. I did it. Granted, it was in portions. But it WAS within 24 hours. That's a start. So maybe I haven't given up yet.
Another thing I'm rethinking -- all this cross-training. Ok, I was only working it in like once a week. But I think it wears me out a little too much. I might go back to just running 3x's a week and calling it good.
As you can see, training is proving to be a little trickier than I thought. Truth be told, I am not an energizer bunny. I wear out. SO, as I play around with this crazy marathon idea, I'll let you know how it goes.
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