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July 31, 2008
Grilling
Today I rode the bike again. That's twice in two days and on those two days I've put in 50 miles. I'm spiritually "back."
After the ride I thought I'd grill some chicken thighs. I've been thinking this all week but had neglected to lay the thighs out to thaw until last night. I guess if I were being totally honest I'd admit that the original plan was to grill two whole chickens. However, when I went to the freezer I found all I had were thighs, breasts and a cow tongue. Haydn wants to be around for the tongue cooking so I grabbed some chicken.
I got off the bike, leaned it against the garage, and then lit the grill to preheat. I went into the house, changed out of my jersey and cycling shorts and into another shirt and shorts. I then got the chicken out of the fridge and shot out the side door.
As I stood in front of the grill putting thighs on the rack something cloth-like slid off my left shoulder. I thought it might be a kitchen towel as I'll sometimes put one over my shoulder when I'm cooking and will have need of getting raw-meet cooties off my hands (I apply a bit of soap-and-water action first).
I glanced down and noticed the towel was the same color as the shorts I'd put on. I then looked at my shorts to verify my shorts/towel color coordination and noticed they were the same color as the underwear I'd slipped into.
Which meant I was standing in front of my grill in my underwear. And a very smart sleeveless shirt.
I'm about a half block off Main Street which meant anybody driving by could get a look at me. Not that I was worried; I figured folks who could see me would think I was wearing what my kids would call short shorts. (My undies were gray and had a bit of leg in them.)
I continued putting the thighs on the grill, bent over to pick up my gym trunks, and casually stepped into the garage to put them on.
I figured there was no point in admitting to my buffoonery by hurriedly yanking up some shorts I'd just retrieved from the ground while out in public.
Technorati Tags: Cycling, Grilling, Hilliard, Underwear
Posted by delmer at 11:16 PM | Comments (9)
July 30, 2008
I know you've missed these
I rode the bike to work today. My records show it has been more than a month since I've been on it; I hadn't realized it was that long.
I had a sense you folks were missing the stories involving my cycling life in pictures. Well, and what I eat. So…
Here I am all geared up for the ride to work. I have my trusty Swiss Gear (by Wenger) backpack on and on this side you can make out the Coppertone Sport Sunscreen. In a similar pocket on the other side I have a tooth brush; I've no idea why.
I've taken the picture in front of the basketball hoop to give the image a sense of scale. As you can see I'm nearly nine-feet tall.
I've been sitting here trying to sort out why that jersey is as snug as it is. Following a brief bit of worry over weight I looked for the same jersey from last year; I wear the blue one a lot.
It's a different jersey. You'd have thought I'd have noticed. (BTW, the sun is in my face a bit in this shot.)
Over lunch I took a tour of the city and stopped at The Best McDonald's in the Franchise for lunch.
I had a grilled chicken sandwich.
This is the same meal without the Money Shot.
I'd ordered the sandwich without mayonnaise or special sauces. Even The Best McDonald's in the Franchise makes a mistake every once in a while.
I also had a parfait and large Diet Coke
Technorati Tags: Cycling, Food, McDonald's
Posted by delmer at 6:00 PM | Comments (9)
July 29, 2008
Back At It
I'm certain you recall how I tweaked my back. It did, after all, provide about a week's worth of blog entries.
The back has been in good shape for more than a week now and feels so good I'm surprised it could ever hurt like it did. It went from being crippling — I couldn't sit comfortably or stand in place and getting up off the floor or out of a chair (if I was stupid enough to sit down) could take minutes… for the first couple of days after the tweaking I was driven to work kneeling in the passenger seat with my butt-end facing the windshield (I was unseatbelted) — to gradually getting better and then finally was just a dull ache two Fridays ago. That Saturday it felt mostly normal though I was careful when I had to bend. That Sunday it was like nothing bad had ever happened (well, Bush had still been elected and stuff; nothing bad as it applied to my back).
I'm not complaining. I'm just surprised there could have been moments of hurting-like-hell on Thursday and then Sunday — boom — no pain at all.
Anyway, being injured put a crimp in the things I do exercise-wise. I've not been on the bike in three weeks and I haven't been to the gym (my garage) in about the same length of time.
I'm very good about following an exercise schedule and will go to the garage four days a week or more until something gets in the way. (And I'd like to take this time to point out that when it comes to working out I am normal-human being sized when it comes to muscle things. I've described myself as that guy you'd see in the gym month after month who would eventually lead you to form a thought about him that went something like, "They should really refund part of his membership fee. This just isn't working for him." In all fairness, and despite my lack of lats, I don't look bad for a 50-year old. I'm 47. And this brings me to another thought, another blogger recently asked for fictional-story ideas and I submitted one. If she's reading I'd like to add something to the description of the character I referred to as Delmer. I'd like him to have big, huge, fucking-massive lats. I'd like them to be described in a manner suggesting they hang off him like racks of lamb (I'd say sides of beef but I use side of beef when I'm writing Jenna Haze fan fiction and describing man tools; I'm trying to stretch myself a bit). I'd like lats that would make anybody say, upon seeing them, what the fuck in that high-pitched voice you might imagine an urban girlfriend using if we could, you know, determine a person's ethnicity based on vocal qualities; thank God the OJ trial put that myth to rest… and as I type that I'm reminded of a bit Robert Klein did (who was the first comedian I recall ever seeing on TV, maybe on Merv's show, and I thought, and still think, he was/is a genius) on this and then I wonder why it is Archie Bunker never referred to fear of Jewish folks as Heebie Jeebies and then I wonder if that will offend my Jewish readers; perhaps one of them will let me know.)
That sort of got out of hand. My apologies to Mike Katz.
So, if I work out regularly I enjoy it and it won't be uncommon for me to start my Wednesday, for example, thinking "tonight I do squats" and I'll look forward to getting out to the garage that evening.
I'm the same way with the bike. If I've got a string of rides going I'm eager to keep the string alive. I think it was last winter I said, "If I can get home quick enough I can be on the bike before the temperature hits 20 F." I made it; I hit the road at 18 F (-7.77 C).
If the string is interrupted for a long period of time, and two weeks seems to be it, it's sort of hard for me to get back in the swing. Last night I hit the garage but I fiddle-farted around before doing it and lacked much in the way of eagerness. I was supposed to ride the bike but couldn't be bothered to put all the stuff on, air up the tires, attach the new pump, and come home sweaty as hell.
So, right now I have a string of one-workout-in-a-row (should that be hyphenated?) going for me. Luckily it doesn't take too much to get me back in the mood (and I know this about me but it never makes getting that first trip to the garage any easier); I'm looking forward to getting back to the garage tomorrow.
Lats that were, well, you know how you'll be in the gym and you'll see the college-aged kid who's about as big around as a number two pencil and he's walking with his arms hanging out from his sides as if he's carrying racks of lamb in his pits and you know it's because he thinks he had big, huge, fucking-massive virtual lats and he doesn't want his big, huge, fucking-massive virtual triceps to chafe rubbing up against them? His lats were that big, but less virtual. It is fiction after all.
Technorati Tags: Cycling, Health, Working out
Posted by delmer at 10:28 PM | Comments (3)
July 28, 2008
Radio Days: Open the Mic
If you've been around the last week you'll know I used to work as a radio DJ.
Eventually, after days and days of training and hearing station stories from the other guys, the time came for me to go live. Dave, the old over-night guy who would be on ahead of me (kind of, and I'll have more on that later) was going to hang out for at least the first night I was on. He was likely there the first week.
We were all responsible for buying our own headphones. I'd taken a look at what some of the other guys had and picked up a pair with ear pads that were sort of foam rubbery and that fit on the ears rather than the more-common type that featured cup-like pads that went around the ears and "sealed" to the side of the head.
When the time came to open the mic and say something I was pretty nervous. Because, you know, when the guy on the radio talks the listening audience hangs on every word. That is, the listening audience stops whatever it is they're doing when the music stops so they can hear, without distraction, whatever it is the announcer guy might say.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I was nervous anyway.
The song ended and I opened the mic and leaned in to give the artist and title.
And I heard a horrible screeching. While it was a screeching I recognized I couldn't place it and, therefore, couldn't figure out what caused it. I was, as I've said, already a bit nervous.
At the first screech I jumped back and took a quick look around. When I didn't see anything out of place (I don't know what I was looking for — maybe a big button marked screech maker?) I leaned back in for another go. And there was more screeching.
Dave came running into the room, killed the mic, said, "you're getting feedback through your headphones" and turned them down.
After a second I opened the mic again, leaned toward it, and without any screeching distractions announced, "That was Porter and Wagoner with ..." and whatever song it would have been that Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton might have been singing.
It was not really the best start to my first night.
The phone rang a few minutes later. It was my buddy Jeff calling to give me a few words of encouragement and to only slightly bust my balls about the Porter and Wagoner comment.
The next day I took the headphones back to the store I got them from and replaced them with a pair that had cups going around the ears.
And so ended my feedback problems.
Below you'll see Sammo in his dirt bike helmet.
Technorati Tags: Radio
Posted by delmer at 9:52 PM | Comments (4)
July 27, 2008
From my Hard Drive
Internet access at the Wells home has been a bit lazy lately. It comes and goes and when it goes it mostly stays gone.
Rather than fight the laziness we're going to celebrate it by playing a lazy game.
You all win. There is no prize. You have two chances to win as there are two questions.
The questions: How Old is Samson in these photos? How adorable is he?
You'll notice he's wearing his "Sam I am" shirt that became available for purchase after the death of Dr. Seuss.
Technorati Tags: Family
Posted by delmer at 9:58 AM | Comments (4)
July 26, 2008
Evil Mastermind
I'm a little fuzzy on the order of the events.
Does the bleaching of the hair come before or after they've come up with their plot to take over the world?
Posted by delmer at 12:07 AM | Comments (10)
July 25, 2008
Radio Days: The Name
I thought I'd keep with the my short life in radio theme. The theme started two days ago if you've missed some of this riveting tale.
I remember having a brief meeting with our Program Director prior to being cut loose on the air. The PD went by Chris Michaels (which, I'd read later, was the number one assumed name of radio types) though his real name was Rob E. (If I were to give you his full name and you were to Google it you'd find there were no shortage of Rob E's on the radio these days.)
When I moved back to Columbus, following a brief stint in Massachusetts as a vagabond, I found Rob gracing the airwaves of one of the local Country stations. I also found our morning guy on one of the local oldies stations though he'd changed his first name from the assumed "Dale" to the real "Jason."
But this isn't about them. It's about me me me!
So, Chris/Rob, Dave and I were sitting around in the booth. It might have been the first night I was going to go on — that seems to fit. Anyway, Chris told me that they'd changed my name from "Delmer" to, "Oh, what was it?" and the thought a second, "oh yea, 'Dan Lyons'."
And "Dan Lyons" was fine with me. I was certain I'd be making a lot of mistakes and a bit of anoninimity seemed like a cool thing to have.
Being Dan Lyons would eventually lead a doctor buddy of mine to have a radio-personality conversation with one of his patients. For some reason they were talking about local radio in Evansville, Indiana and my friend said something like, "A guy I went to High School with was a disc jockey for a while. They wouldn't let him use his real name so he went by 'Dan Lyons'."
This led his patient to exclaim, "I've heard of him," and my doctor friend to pause and say, "I don't know. It was probably a different 'Dan Lyons.' My buddy worked at a pretty small station."
The-Wife-At-The-Time once had this conversation. Again, she and a friend were talking about local radio or something similar.
TWATT: "Delmer was a disc jockey for a while. They wouldn't let him use his real name and decided to call him 'Dan Lyons'."
The Friend: "Well, 'Delmer' would probably have been OK for a country station."
TWATT: It was a country station.
Proving I was too country for country.
One more thing on the name. I went into work one night to find we were starting something called Memory Maker Weekends and I had my own little promo cart that had been put together by whomever did our out-of-house voice work. The promo went something like, "And now… more of a Memory Maker Weekend with… Dan Lyons." And "Dan Lyons" was emphasized just a hair.
The voice was so deep and had such resonance and the whole thing struck me as so over the top that I blushed. I hesitate to say it as I certainly don't want to poke fun of anybody I worked with or the station or anything at all, but I felt so much like Les Nesnam would have, had he had any sense, when he played his news intro.
Technorati Tags: Radio
Posted by delmer at 5:29 PM | Comments (2)
July 24, 2008
Radio Training
As I mentioned in yesterday I used to work at WBZI-FM, a small radio station in Xenia, Ohio.
As I sit here I'm sort of lost for when I started the job and when I left it. I was there in May of '85 as that's when I started dating the short red-haired girl and I was working there then. I think I quit in October and I believe I was there nine months. Which has me starting in February of 1984.
Well, it was a long time ago.
I do remember that I trained for a week or so before being let loose on my own. Oh, also that I'd been hired as the overnight guy, Dave, was moving to evenings because that guy was moving to Bob Evans' management; he had a family and needed a real job. Another thing about the Bob Evans guy is that he came to WBZI after being fired from WONE, one of the larger stations in the Dayton market. (WONE was an AM station with WTUE being her sister FM staion. Get it? One… Two.) He was fired for playing his personal copy of Kip Addotta's Wet Dream as it didn't fit WONE's country format. The station found out he was playing the song when listeners called in requesting it.
Back to training.
I showed up for a week or two before the guy left for Bob Evans and hung out with Dave while he did what he did.
We had several boxes of cards which determined how songs came up in rotation. The Yellow cards, of which there were many, were older songs and they got lighter play coming up about 40 minutes after the hour. Blue cards, of which there were few, came up at 10 before the hour. I'll bet yellow cards came up at 20 past also and that we used those to fill time; it seemed I was always digging through that box. We also had White cards which were the current popular songs.
There may have been more colors. And they may have come up at different times than I recall.
There were rules about how often a song could come up based on the card color. And we'd mark the play time on the card.
The most impressive thing Dave showed me was how to pick the last song before the news came on. Our news feed came up at the same time each hour and the feed came in by satellite. Rather than cut a song off in the middle we'd time it so the last song ended just prior to the news and so we'd have five or ten seconds to give the time and mention the upcoming news. Then we'd play the news sounder and turn the news guy up.
It's trickier than it sounds. Anybody can start a song and think "The next song needs to be about three and a half minutes to hit the news right," but three and a half minutes could be 3:20 or 3:40. If you come up short you can talk a little longer — Dave mistimed short once and filled part of the time by stretching the call letters out so long it became part of the station lore… Double-U Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Zeeeeeeeeee Eyyyyyyyyyyyyyyee — but if you go long you end up cutting a song off. And that's just sloppy.
And there's nothing Country and Western fans detest more than sloppiness.
Except for maybe warm Budweiser.
Technorati Tags: Beer, Radio, Relationships
Posted by delmer at 9:50 PM | Comments (3)
July 23, 2008
Working in Radio
Way way back, oh, around 1985, I worked at a small radio station in Xenia, Ohio. The station was WBZI-FM (95.3 on your FM dial) and we billed ourselves as the "all new, I-95 FM."
Most of the time we were a Country station back when Country was called Country and Western. For a short period of time we dropped the C&W part and simply said we were "playing all of your favorites." Fortunately, most of your favorites were still Country and Western as that's what the vast majority of our music library was. Saying we were "playing all of your favorites" allowed us to sneak a little bit of Bruce Springsteen and some Rolling Stones in.
We sneaked in "I'm on Fire" and "Bitch."
I'm lying about "Bitch." But you knew that.
I was the overnight guy and, to be quite honest, I was horrible. Most every time I opened the mic I was terrified. I'll go more into that in a later post.
What is more important is that being on the radio is the thing I always wanted to do. And I wanted to do is so badly that I took a cut in unemployment to take the job at the station.
One more time.
I was laid off from a steel mill and the money I was making sitting around on my butt, doing nothing, collecting unemployment was more than the money I would get paid driving 45 minutes to an hour to work from 11 p.m. to six in the morning six nights a week.
Ah. Youth.
(Maybe it was midnight to six or eleven to five. It seems like it was fewer than 40 hours per week.)
Technorati Tags: Radio
Posted by delmer at 10:44 PM | Comments (4)
July 22, 2008
I whine a bit
I am having a fathering crisis of some sort.
It had been my intention to take the boys on a vacation each year and then have a personal vacation at some point later. The reasoning being that whenever you vacation with your children you are never really on a vacation yourself; you are constantly watching for child snatchers. Even when the smallest of your children is over 100 pounds and the largest is six-feet tall and outweighs you.
It was just January when we all went to Disney and the Bahamas.
And now it's summer.
The eldest boy is off at Catholic Heart Camp helping rehab houses, learning how to be a good citizen, and hanging out with people his own age. The youngest is with the ex-in-laws having the summer he's planned on having since last summer (he's riding dirt bikes a lot). The middle child is home with me this week, is sleeping late, and we do father/son things in the evening; last night we saw a movie, the night before we walked 3.2 miles and had dinner halfway through the trip. Jeez… and I bought the him an XBox this past Sunday (he paid for half).
On Saturday the two elder boys will go to visit my parents who will then take them to Williamsburg where they'll spend a week getting dragged behind a boat.
It is not like these guys are having the summer from hell. AND I took them out of school a week when we went to Disney. Not to mention their mother took them skiing at some point. All things considered they could have worse lives. Anyway, that's what I tell myself when I feel like I'm falling short of the parenting goal.
Not long ago I thought I'd go to Canada and pedal between Montreal and Quebec in whichever manner would have me going east. My plan had been to drive to Windsor or Toronto and take the train to one of the cities and make my way toward the other. It would have all the pluses of being in another country — and a portion of that country in which the residents hate Americans no more than they do their fellow non-French-Canadian brethren — and yet be close enough to Columbus to, uh, hmm… not require a lot of packing.
I don't think the Canada trip is going to pan out. I'm having trouble finding time to get on a bicycle here at home.
I'm feel guilty over not going to Williamsburg and I would like to go (who doesn't want to get dragged behind a boat?), but it would be so hard to do in the time frame I've got to work with.
Blah blah blah. Poor whiny me.
I think part of my problem is I'm not getting anything done. My chiropractor told me not to spread mulch for another several days (though back things look better and I feel great). I'm guessing spreading soil is out of the question too. I'm not allowed to do squats though I can lift. I can ride the bike.
I'm sure I'll feel more chipper in a couple of days.
On the upside, I see my therapist tomorrow. I haven't been depressed since I last saw her, which was six weeks ago, or in the four weeks before that or the four weeks before that. Probably the four or eight weeks prior to that as well. I don't remember when the last time I was depressed was but I remember it hit me when I was working out, it was very small, and Ted Nugent helped pull me out of it. So I've got that working for me.
Ah. And I just finished reading the Tao. I guess I'm more enlightened. That's sort of cool.
Technorati Tags: Guilt, Parenting, Vacation
Posted by delmer at 11:47 AM | Comments (6)
July 21, 2008
Late 1970
I was cleaning out my office yesterday — thoroughly — and ran across some boxes I'd not opened since I changed location about five years ago. At first glance everything in the box was trash. As I can't just toss or recycle stuff without looking through it I dug into the box.
And I found these photos.
That would be my, my brother (on the toy piano) and my sister. The date stamp on the photo says MAR 1971. If you know anything about early 70's photography you'll know that the MAR 71 was the month the film was developed. You'll also know that photos weren't taken willy-nilly like they are today and that the roll of film might contain many months of photos. If you look above my sister's head you'll see the bottom of what I think are Santa's boots. So this was likely December 1970. I was 10, my brother 8 and my sister 5 (to be 6 in January).
This is me opening a Johnny Eagle Target Shooter ("You've never seen such a fighting gun, like a Johnny Eee-gle… bum bum bum bum bumbum). Johnny Eagle seems to have made a wide range of toy weaponry for the Russian-fearful; The gun in the box I'm opening is a non-military weapon and the guys on the back are shooting skeet or something. I also had a Johnny Express semi and trailer (you gotta see this commercial … I remembered the part where the two kids stand on it the trailer — you'll notice the kids in the photo are not the size of Wells boys); my friend, Rocky, had the Johnny Astro. And while nobody I knew had the Johnny 7 One-Man Army, it looks pretty cool in that You Tube Video. It appears all the "Johhny" stuff came from Topper Toys.
This would have been Christmas 1970. I, as in the prior photo, was 10.
(Also in the photo is a console TV, that I'm sure is black and white, and sectional couch.)
This had to be August, September or early October of 1970. I would have turned 10 on August 23rd. I think I'm the kid in the helmet. To the far right, the first whole kid you can see is Jerry Collins — we were roommates in college. Tony Burnett, our quarterback, is standing up to the left. Kneeling, and barely visible behind number 11 may be our coach, Doodles Williams; he had a real name but I don't know what it was.
What have we learned from all of this? Don't throw crap away without looking through all the boxes first. You never know what misplaced things you might find.
I'm going to do something new with this post and that is I'll give you:
Approved Comment Starter Phrases.
The three of you are so cute in the first photo…
What's up with the mustard outfit?
Why are you the only one wearing your helmet?
Unapproved Comment Starter Phrases
Hey! I was born in March 1971!
I remember reading about the 70's in history class! Is that what it looked like?
Posted by delmer at 8:45 AM | Comments (16)
July 20, 2008
Franklin County Fair
The Franklin County Fair has come and gone. I didn't get a chance to go and even missed the tractor pull; it appears I was taking a walk the night or nights they were held.
I walk through the fairgrounds on the way to work in the morning and took the following photos while the fair slept.
It appears there was a magic show.
One of the rides: The Worm
Funnel Cakes
Batter Dipped veggies. And yes, they're fried as well (otherwise they're just icky).
Cotton Candy. One of my favorites.
The Climbing Wall. We're not in the best shape in Ohio so we do the horizontal climb. Okay, there's a very good chance they raise this when the fair opens.
The Erectile Dysfunction booth.
Walking Taco.
Some rides.
Technorati Tags: Fair, Hilliard
Posted by delmer at 10:34 PM | Comments (11)
July 19, 2008
Indian Pharmacies
As you may recall I recently purchased four .5 mg pills for $110.00.
The pills were Cabergoline which is the generic for Dostinex.
If I were so inclined I could buy the following:
That's $6.41 for four .5 mg pills.
I'm pretty sure shipping on those 4 would be $20. But I'm also pretty sure I could buy 50 pills from the same place and shipping would be $20.00.
The pharmacy in question is located in India and there are certain things they won't ship to the US. Their version of Cialis is one such thing, though I purchased that from them a couple of years ago when I was trying to sort out hormonal things. Based on my experience with their Cialis — it worked as well as the "real" stuff and the side effects were the same (muscle ache if you took too much) — I'm betting their Cabergolin is as good as Cabergoline.
Someone will be tempted to argue that the drug companies have the right to recoup their investment, and I don't disagree though I'd like to think helping people out would come before price gouging.
Here we're talking about two generics. I pay $110 for four pills for a generic. The Indian pharmacy is able to sell a generic for $1.60.
I certainly don't know anything about licensing fees that might be involved. Maybe there's more to this than I see. But you'd think there'd be some sort of middle ground between $31 per pill (name-brand Dostinex) and a $1.60 pill that comes closer to $15.00 than it does $27.50 (generic, purchased from my local pharmacy, Cabergoline).
I used to take 27 pills a month. People with Parkinson's take, as I recall, a good deal more than I take. (The mean daily dose was 3.8 mg daily again I take .25 mg weekly. Due to the way my prescription is written, the $110 will last two months.)
[A person with Parkinson's taking 3.8 mg of Cabergoline daily at $27.50 per pill will, theoretically, spend $6270 in 30 days. Without insurance.]
Technorati Tags: Health, Pituitary, Generic Drugs
Posted by delmer at 12:57 PM | Comments (6)
July 18, 2008
GPS vs Software
Today I'm guest posting over at Marie Millard's. Stop by if you have a moment.
In other news…
These past seven days I've walked between 65 and 70 miles.
Last night, and just for fun, I walked the mile up to the track and did some timings with my GPS so I could compare the calories it said I burned against the software I use. (Yes, I was that bored.)
I walked one 17-minute and one 15-minute mile around the track. I had everything setup as if I weighed 245 pounds; the fact I weight 242 would skew the results just a bit, I'm sure.
The graphic says for the 17-minute mile my GPS reported I burned 175 calories (10.3 per minute) while the software reported 122 calories burned (7.2 per minute).
We're not going to get into a lot of analysis. My thought is the software is more correct and if it isn't I'd rather err on the side of thinking I'd burned too few calories than too many.
What we will take away from this is:
I probably burn close to 9 calories per minute when I walk as I can clip along at 15-minute miles without too much trouble. I knew this before I knocked out 10 in fewer than 2.5 hours the other day.
If a person walks 60 miles over seven days he can have a Corona and a Guinness (sometimes two of each) nightly without showing any gain in weight. I'm guessing the sweet spot comes in at something under 60 miles but I can't say I'm really too interested in running that experiment.
So, some analysis.
Assuming I walked 15.5 minute miles I walked 930 minutes or 15.5 hours. At nine calories per minute I burned 8370 calories which, at 3500 calories per pound, equates to just over two pounds of fat. (We'll overlook the fact that part of that loss would have come in the form of muscle mass.)
(15.5 hours on the bike would have burned 21,000 calories.)
Technorati Tags: Health, Walking, Working out
Posted by delmer at 2:50 PM | Comments (12)
July 17, 2008
Tidbits
A Correction: The other day I wrote something like, "I don't care if you grow opium in your backyard." Naturally, I meant poppies. This correction came to me as I was taking a walk suggesting I think about the blog too much.
A Notification: In the past seven days I've walked over 60 miles. There will be more on this later.
A Conversation: Earlier this week, one of the days my back was at it's peak of grumpiness, I got a call from a British person. "Hold on," I said, "I'm going to lie down on the floor."
Said move to the floor involved a squeal, some snorting and a bit of huffing. It was very Three Little Pigs, but I eventually made it.
"Are you okay," asked the British person.
"Oh yea," I assured her, "I was just having lunch and doing some research on something I could buy to help me do squats." Before the pregnant pause that followed could become outright ridiculing I threw in, "Yes, I know… the irony of the situation is not lost on me."
And the British think Americans don't understand irony.
This photo was taken looking down Main Street. When construction started several people, business owners who should know, said they'd heard it was supposed to be finished by July 4th. Now, I'm no enginneer, but it looks to be about half finished to me. The sidewalks on the right are new and look very nice, though they aren't totally finished. I'm guessing the left side will look just as good when everything is done.
Technorati Tags: Back Pain, Walking
Posted by delmer at 10:42 PM | Comments (8)
July 16, 2008
Walkabout
Yesterday as I left work I had the following thought: "I'll bet I could walk 10 miles in under two and a half hours."
I'll admit it's an odd thought to have but it was either that or go home and lie on my floor and spend the night watching TV. The back is such that lying is good and walking is good. Other things, while much better than they were just the day before, can be troublesome. And things like spreading mulch and dirt are out of the question.
Blah blah blah.
Eleven point six seven miles later I'd averaged 14:42 per mile. Which isn't horrible especially when you consider the first two of those miles I had a backpack on with my computer and office stuff in it (my computer is a Cray XT5) and the backpack affected my gait such that I'd averaged 5:34 15:34 over two miles. [Thanks to my crack editing staff for the pace correction.]
As I'd already walked 5.5 miles, my daily total was just over 17 (27.35 km).
According to my GPS I burned 2063 calories over the 11.67 miles. The software on my PDA gave me credit for 1616. That's 447 calories difference which is about the amount you'll get in one of those big nutritionally-void muffins nobody should ever eat for breakfast but people still do. (Calories will vary by muffin company.)
Monday night, as I walked past the fairgrounds, I heard the announcement that the balloon launch had been canceled; the FAA had denied approval due to the way the wind was blowing. The announcer said they'd try again Tuesday.
And it looks like it was a success. This photo was taken from the Home Depot parking lot.
Technorati Tags: Fair, Hilliard, Hot Air Balloons
Posted by delmer at 5:24 PM | Comments (7)
July 15, 2008
The blog turns a profit II
I mentioned, yesterday, that the blog has finally turned a profit which has come to me in the way of freebies. Yesterday I told you about the Frito-Lay Pinch of Salt chips I received that were very good even while they had me wondering if anybody at Frito-Lay had considered that Pinch of Salt was POS. (And I'm not making a point of sale crack here.)
The second thing I've received is a Schick Quattro Titanium Trimmer. And I may have screwed you by taking too long to mention it. Yesterday when I went to the TrimFlixx site I found a link on how visitors could get a free Schick Quattro Titanium Trimmer. You may have had to create a TrimFlixx video for that link to come up but I can't find the link today regardless of what I do; maybe I'm just overlooking it. There was an "as long as supplies last" disclaimer and it may be that supplies have been exhausted. And that would be a shame as this gizmo appears to be pretty sweet. (In my defense my razor didn't arrive until yesterday and since the chips came first, they got first mention.)
As I've mentioned in past entries I really don't do reviews well. I either like something or I don't. And I like this item.
Anyway, let's start with what I think is the coolest part of the razor, and that is the trimmer end which is very handy. And I'm not just saying this because I got it free Schick Trimmer and feel any sort of obligation to say nice things. If that were the case I wouldn't make the porn-flick reference I'm going to make in a couple of paragraphs.
I currently have a "personal groomer" I use to trim my ear hairs, nose hairs, and eyebrows. The eyebrow trimming is always a little iffy as I have to use a comb to pull out my eyebrows a bit so I can run my groomer over them and I'm always afraid some sort of slip will occur and I'll end up nicking an eyebrow. The Schick Quattro Titanium Trimmer has a guide on it and set at its lowest level it appears to be perfect for trimming my eyebrows. And it's sturdy enough to lop off even those hairs that come in as monofilament fishing line (what's up with that God?). It also did a dandy job on the ear hair and the trimmer end is sized such that nose-hair trimming is hassle free.
I've owned three of the aforementioned personal groomers over the years and have had to toss each one when the non-replaceable (and I've tried) battery had quit accepting charges. The Schick takes a standard AAA battery (it comes with a battery included that I'll eventually replace with a rechargeable nickel metal hydride).
According to the packaging, and my testing, the Schick Quattro Titanium Trimmer is shower safe.
The razor comes with four titanium-coated blades. I honestly don't know if that's important or not. Years ago I remember watching SNL and seeing a fake commercial in which a razor with three blades was being advertised. As it happens it was the first episode and it was just rebroadcast following George Carlin's death. While the "commercial" was on my dad walked in, watched it for a second and said something similar to, "That's the stupidest idea ever. What's next? A razor with four blades?" It seems my dad was ahead of his time.
Last night I shaved half my face with the Schick Quattro Titanium Trimmer and half with one of those blue disposable jobs. At the end of the shaving session both sides were kissably smooth, but that's just my opinion and I think that all the time. The Schick felt better in my hand.
"All of this is fine and dandy for the men," you say, "but what about the gals?" I don't know. I'm not up to date on the shaving needs of women and like to pretend they don't suffer from the same nose and ear hair problem men have. I will mention that the Schick Quattro Titanium Trimmer is of a handy size for a purse and with the trimmer on vibrates at a resonate frequency of 60 hertz which is the same as a Rampant Rabbit. Make of that what you will. (60 Hz is also the refresh rate of my LCD display which is why I chose it for this made-up "fact.")
While it doesn't advertise itself as such, the Schick Quattro Titanium Trimmer has the ability to give you the lats you always wanted. Even it it does require a bit of cutting and pasting.
If you go the the TrimFlixx site you'll notice that their banner doesn't say "Star in Trim Flixx" but "Star in a Trim Flixx." I did a little bit of editing. But I couldn't help myself as I got caught up in the irony that a razor company was involved in something called Trim Flixx. The irony is hard to explain but I wondered if anybody had made the jump that a "Trim Flick" might involve, you know, trim. Doesn't anybody say, "I got some trim last night?" anymore. I don't, but if I did I would.
Of course what makes the irony even more ironic is we were calling it trim back when it wasn't being trimmed at all. These days Clarence Thomas would have trouble finding anything to complain about when it comes to stuff on his Coke can.
Oh, the Schick Quattro Titanium Trimmer comes in at $14.99. The personal groomer that I'll no longer have to use ran me $23.00 and takes up a lot more real estate around the sink.
(One more thing. There is a single blade on the back of the four-blade head that can be used for edging the sideburns. Mine were in spectacular shape last night so I didn't make use of this feature.)
Technorati Tags: Blogging, Freebies
Posted by delmer at 10:07 PM | Comments (4)
July 14, 2008
The Blog Turns a Profit
Before we get into the WADLL fiscal report let me clarify something. The shirt I bought yesterday that is made of technical fabric is 100% polyester. Last night I wasn't sure so I was a bit ambiguous; in all fairness my ambiguousness was brought on by the fact I was resting my back and didn't care to get up off the floor.
If you'd like a back update, all is going very well. However, this morning as I was putting my underwear on I raised a leg too high and ended up screaming a bit. Even before the scream had quit echoing through the downstairs my mind formed the thought, "This is the one thing I can't do that I can't ask anybody to help me with."
One more thing, on the way to work today (I walked the roughly two miles) I formed an irritation about one of the people I'd forgiven yesterday. Recalling that I'd recently wiped the slate clean for everyone I asked myself what would Ted Nugent Do? (I had my iPod on). Lacking a crossbow, rifle, or a group of 14-year old female cross country runners whom I could hose down and shout improprieties at, I decided to free my mind of the irritation and continue on my way. I felt a whole lot better.
Now, for the blog's fiscal report.
You'll be happy to know we turned a profit this year.
Expenses were: 00.00
Income: Cash: 00.00
Income: Gifts: I'm thinking about $4.00
If you add in esoteric income, that being the people I've met and interact with due to blogging, the income would be much greater. But let's focus on the $4.00.
Twice in the past several weeks I've been sent e-mail by folks wondering if I want to try their product.
One was a PR-type working on behalf of Frito-Lay. Suspecting I might be a chip eater they wanted to send me a sample of Lay's new Pinch of Salt line.
As a person who has no problem with salt and have gone so far as to say the best part of a chip is its salty goodness I was a little concerned about how the Lays Pinch of Salt chips might taste.
They did not disappoint and were certainly salty enough to make that part of my tongue that craves sodium chloride happy.
For those of you with salt concerns, the above photo should give you an idea of how much sodium you'll get per serving.
(Do you think they refer to this line internally as the Lays POS line?)
I don't recall the Frito Lay person asking that I write a review of the chips as a condition of their freeness but I don't feel bad plugging them. I'm a big fan of chips and Lays has never disappointed.
(And, of course, it gave me something to blog about during a time in which I thought you might be tired of hearing about my back.)
Technorati Tags: Blogging, Freebies
Posted by delmer at 8:31 PM | Comments (13)
July 13, 2008
Guinness on Sunday
I was thinking of putting up a video post today. Something along the lines of Walking About Hilliard. After reviewing the clips I found they bored the hell out of me and since I had a sincere interest in what I was doing and you don't I figured they'd put you to sleep.
The walking was going to start with a trip to County Cork Irish Pub. (Well, it did, there's just no video.) As I sat sipping on a Diet Coke and waiting for my food to arrive I did a bit of a self-assessment at the end of which I decided to forgive everybody I think needs forgiven. You know, on a local scale, not on a God-like scale. So, anybody I feel has slighted me in the least — the list is incredibly short — is now fogiven. And if, at this moment, they're receiving some sort of ESP-like feeling that I'm forgiving them and follow that up with a thought of their own that goes, "That's bullshit, I don't need forgiven," they're forgiven for that as well.
This isn't to say that one or two things don't need to be taken care of. But only because they are right — not "right" as defined by me, but genuinely right — and not because I'm a bastard.
So, the slate is clean. Life is good. I'm happy. You should be too. From this point forward I'm blogging naked; I'll be sure to put a towel down.
Anyway.
I had a grilled chicken salad, a Guinness, a Corona and a Diet Pepsi at County Cork. (How is it that Guinness used to seem so thick and heavy to me and now I think it's one of the best beers ever. The foam on the top is like a dessert topping. Is Guinness the thick, heavy beer I'm thinking of; or was it something else?)
And then it was off to the Library, Kroger…
Oh yea, Kroger. To pick up my Cabergoline.
Here are some facts:
Guess what I paid for them. The answer will be at the end of the post.
Following the walk to Kroger I walked to Target where I picked up a polo shirt made of technical fabric (the stuff we used to call polyester… sort of).
The round trip was just under nine miles.
Some of the things I saw:
This is a shot of Trueman Blvd. You can see Target in the background.
A rather nice Willow Tree just outside of the old Red Roof Inns home office.
A pond on the old Red Roof Inn property. This is just off Trueman Blvd. This used to be sort of remote, all things considered, but is now very close to the road. It's still very pretty.
We're getting a new rotary. Right now traffic is being diverted to the right (north) and around the area that's being dug up. Going north out of this rotary will take you to another rotary and if you continue north to a third. Go south one intersection (on a bit of road not yet built) and you'll be at the place I work.
It's time for the Franklin County Fair.
This is a shot of the fair from outside the gate. I may go in the night of the tractor pulls but I wasn't really in the mood to pay for admission just to get better photos. After all I'd just paid for four pills.
And what did I pay? $110.00. (55 British Pounds, 114 Australian Dollars, 110 Canadian Dollars, One hundred fucking ten grumpy-old-man dollars)
Technorati Tags: Carnival, Contruction, Hilliard
Posted by delmer at 9:20 PM | Comments (14)
Liars
Regarding Bald Faced and Bold Faced Liars. The answer is barefaced liar.
Although all three are used.
So why, then, can any one be the answer? Because the Oxford English Dictionary says so.
Coincidentally it was an English person who first suggested barefaced was the correct choice.
And yet refrigeration, as it applies to beer, is beyond them.
Technorati Tags: Beer
Posted by delmer at 8:58 PM | Comments (6)
July 12, 2008
Rain and No Pain
I woke up bright and early today and did a quick back assessment. It felt better, but it typically does in the morning.
Mom has been visiting, helping me with the boys and keeping an eye on me.
Dad was due to come collect her today and I was worried he'd want to mow my grass. Since mom had told me to stay away from my mower I waited for her to run some errands before I fired it up. The back was fine.
I then shot out the door to take a walk as I needed to get some things from work. About a mile from home it started raining with some serious vigor. Even though the rain was one of those friendly, refreshing rains, and even though I was wearing shorts and a shirt made of "technical fabric" (that will dry at the merest suggestion of sunshine) I thought I should turn around and get an umbrella.
As I walked back home I started wondering about technical fabric. It's supposed to wick sweat away from the body to keep a person cooler and I wondered if, when it rained, it might wick moisture toward the body. Or would I have to have it on inside-out for that to happen?
I'm not one to worry about how I look and was able to enjoy my time in the rain. What I mean was I was walking in the rain, I was soaked, but I didn't give a shit. It was rather nice.
Protected by an umbrella I headed back toward work. About half-way there the rain turned to a drizzle — big drops not that pins-and-needles stuff — so I put the umbrella down and considered that a guy walking in the rain umbrellaless might look a bit sad and like he needs a ride, but a guy walking in the rain carrying an umbrella probably looks like he has no idea how to put it up.
Eight miles later I was back at home lying to mom about who'd mowed the yard. She wasn't fooled.
Technorati Tags: Back Pain, Sweating, Yard work
Posted by delmer at 11:22 PM | Comments (7)
July 11, 2008
My Hard Drive Woes
I imagine you've been lying awake at night worried over my hard drive issues.
To be totally honest, I imagine the women lying awake in silk nighties and with a few candles lit casting subtle shadows over the gentle lines of their bodies. Still concerned about my hard drive problems but with come-hither looks on their faces. And maybe with a bit of leftover pizza on their nightstands (an active fantasy life works up an appetite).
You may recall that I have a Dell notebook that worked very well for a very long time. Back toward the beginning of the year I installed a 250-gig drive in it and reinstalled all the programs. Weeks later it booted to a cursor and everything needed to be reinstalled again. That drive died shortly thereafter and I reinstalled everything to a 160-gig drive. It booted to a cursor the week before last and I reinstalled everything to the original 80-gig drive.
It should be noted that following the reinstalls I was left with stuff on my PC in a disorderly fashion. I told myself that as soon as I got things the way I wanted them I'd clone the drive as I have a tool that will do it in very short order.
I also turned off automatic updates after each install. I normally have them on but I didn't want them interfering with the organization of the new PC. That's to say, I didn't want to be faced with an "XP downloaded a bunch of stuff that will be installed next boot" delay while I was piddling with the notebook.
Well, I never put the amount of time I needed into sorting out files and the recovery directories I'd created. So I never got around to cloning the drive before it next failed. But really, I rarely have a drive fail or get corrupted to the point it won't boot and would have never thought it would have happened so many times so close together.
Anyway, I've been sorting things out while I've been on my back resting up from the tweaking.
I also think I've found the answer to what's been going wrong and there's a chance that having Automatic Updates on might have saved me some grief. There are two hot fixes that address issues related to LBA and drives over 137 gigs. I think my problem might have been related to corruption when an XP machine goes into hibernation or standby mode; despite the fact I was positive I'd shut the computer off maybe I closed the lid before it shutdown totally. It's the only thing that makes sense
Technorati Tags: Dell, Computers
Posted by delmer at 10:33 PM | Comments (1)
July 10, 2008
Driving in the Bluegrass State
There we were, the boys and I, roaring down the interstate in Kentucky. Ahead of me was an SUV and ahead of him was a white mini-van.
We were all doing the speed limit which happened to be 70 mph.
The SUV decided he'd like to do 75 mph and swung into the passing lane. As I wanted to do 75 I got in behind him.
Thirty seconds later we were all doing 80. The SUV and white mini-van neck-and-neck with me trailing the SUV.
The guy in the SUV was a bit uncomfortable doing 80, as was I, and the two of us fell in behind the white mini-van once more. We were in our original order.
Thirty seconds later we were all doing 70 mph again.
I still wanted to do 75 and swung around the SUV. A moment or two later I was aside the white mini-van almost even with the driver's-side window. A few moments after that the mini-van and I were both doing 80.
Now, I don't know how you approach things like this but I get a little bit curious. So I turned to Haydn and said, "See if that's a woman driving."
As you know, it was.
While I wasn't keen on doing 80 I was less keen on falling in behind the gal in the white mini-van. So we kept racing down the road until she encountered traffic in her lane.
And I can't help but wonder if she isn't blogging about the asshole who pulled up next to her and refused to pass, running her into slower traffic.
Oris is buried in the cemetery just up the road from mom and dad's. I loved the name.
Posted by delmer at 6:26 PM | Comments (6)
July 9, 2008
Dear Kentucky
You are truly a beautiful state. Sexy hot, laying or lying, as you do, atop Tennessee all stretched out like a vestal virgin from a Mott the Hoople song. What the hell is a vestal virgin, you ask? And while we're posing questions I know that things lay and people lie but if you're taking a thing and personifying it which one do you use? And would it be better if I said, "Which one would a person use?"
But let's not get caught up in that.
Gorgeous you are! And full of friendly people who typically keep right except to pass on the Interstate and who always wave when they approach you on one of the rural roads of which you are so full. I believe the French would say, "Pleine de rural roads" unless, of course, that means pregnant with. Who's to say? The French are sometimes a nutty lot and maybe they would say "Pregnant with rural roads. Mais bien sur!"
Everywhere you turn there is a beautiful view. Views that take your breath in a manner second only to walking into one or your restaurants.
I realize that, as one of our Merchant of Death states, you would feel denying the 27.5% of your adult population (the highest in the nation) and the 37.4% of Covington 9th to 12 graders — good work on that Kentucky — that smoke the right to mask the smell of food and air for the 73% of non-smokers (when adjusted to remove 9th to 12 graders… again, good work there).
I know, I know I know — and if you are a regular reader of the blog you know that three I knows is the ultimate in I knowness — I could always choose a less smoky restaurant. And that's what I did more than once. It's what I used to do in Ohio. In fact, I hardly ever go to a Bob Evans now and I used to all but live in one. What happened is that I was at a Bob Evans in Maryland and noticed it seemed better than the one near me. After a bit of pondering it occurred to me the difference was it smelled like pancakes and eggs and not a bar. Filled with hope that my Bob Evans could one day smell like food I fired off a letter to the home office pointing out that as they'd already reduced the smoking section from 1/2 to 1/4 of the restaurant, and the 1/4 was never full while I was there. The home office sent a note back to me telling me that going non-smoking did not fit into their then-current business plan for the Hilliard market as it was their intention to kill off the weak of lung due to their stereotypical poor tipping habits.
I can't tell you the last time I was in a Bob Evans.
Cracker Barrel had an even odder thought about what was a good smoking/non-smoking solution. They once seated me on the non-smoking side of a lattice barrier. Had the barrier not been there I could have reached over and bonked the guy on the smoking side on the head. Lattice? It's like a screen with really big holes. I can't say their oddball smoking policy is the thing that keeps me out of Cracker Barrel these days; they discriminate against gay folks and I'm not on board with that. It seems that treating gays fairly goes against the family-good-feelyness they want to promote; exposing infants to second-hand smoke never did.
Still, my least favorite non-smoking policy was the one in use at the local Fuddruckers. While they had a sign stating they were non-smoking after 4 p.m. the manager would sometimes call an audible and allow smoking. This sort of sucked for those of us who went there only after 4 expecting to feed our children in a smoke-free environment. I'll bet I haven't been in a Fuddruckers in six or seven years. And I'll never go to another again.
Ohio is a non-smoking state now so I can eat wherever I want without too much worry.
Kentucky, I don't want you to think I'm one of those anti-smoking nutjobs. I'm certainly a nutjob but I'm a nutjob that thinks people should be able to do whatever it is they'd like. If it were up to me you'd be able to grow pot and opium in your backyard (depending on the hardiness zone you live in) and make meth in your bathtub or wherever you'd make it. Now, I'd want you to be all doped up in your own home and if you had kids I'd support taking them from you if you were negligent, but overall, I believe people should be able to do what they want.
The only reason I posted about this at all is when I went to buy gas the first time I walked in to pay and get a pop it was a little smoky. And I was reminded of the smokiness each time I took a sip of my Diet Pepsi as the bottle smelled. I can't say I've missed that.
Ah. And then there was the small restaurant. Upon entering I noticed of the 20 or 25 people nobody was smoking. About 30 minutes later a patron lit up and I couldn't help but wonder why that seemed right to him. Certainly he had every right to smoke, but he was the only one and I wondered if that occurred to him. The next day I gave my socks the sniff test and decided to wear a new pair not because they smelled like foot, but because they smelled like smoke.
(Yes, I know, I should wear new socks every day. When I'm on vacation I try to do some clothing conservation. Just in case.)
This is a pond not far from where my folks live.
Technorati Tags: Kentucky
Posted by delmer at 3:33 PM | Comments (5)
July 8, 2008
Kodachrome
If you took all the girls I knew when I was single, and brought them all together for the night, I know they'd never match my sweet imagination, but I think they'd all get along with each other. I mean, jeez, just sharing stories about stupid things I've done would be enough to pass several evenings.
Once in a while I'll have dinner with a woman I've never had dinner with before. These things normally come about as a woman I've met somehow will ask me if I want to have dinner with her (yes, I know how this sounds). My first reaction is to look at her hands as I've had several women friends tell me that I should always look at a gal's hands before approaching her and asking her out; I imagine the same holds true if a woman asks a guy out. So I look.
Since I can't recall what I'm supposed to be looking for I always check for scars and fingertips as I like to know that my dining companions are comfortable using cutlery and that they have the ability to make their way through a Bloomin' Onion without nipping off bits of their fingers. I have standards.
In the past year I've had dinners with seven different women, I think. Eight if you count The Dark Haired Girl and A Woman Friend of Mine.
But that's not what this post is mostly about. It's mostly about how I lie to my friends about my activities regarding women.
Sometimes I lie by omission; if someone asks what I'm doing one evening and it's a rare night I have something going on I'll say, "riding the new bike" when a more true answer would involve a bike ride and dinner with a woman.
Other times they are just big, fat lies. I say it that way mostly because I don't know if a person says "bald faced" or "bold faced" lies or a version of that in which "face" replaces "faced." Whatever it's supposed to be the way it works in my case is that a friend will ask if I've had a date recently and I'll say "no."
(Of course, if someone asks if I'm seeing someone I'm just as likely to say "yes" to keep them from trying to fix me up. This is an easier game to play than it might sound.)
I imagine I tell different people "no" for different reasons. Some folks, if they hear you have a date, will say things like, "Think you'll get lucky?" and while I know they're joking there's a part of me that feels that this denigrates women and I don't care for it. Having dinner with me is often denigrating enough as I eat with my fingers and I don't care to compound matters. Also, I think if there's going to be any denigration involved women like a little bit of wine first; and, of course, they'd prefer no animals get hurt.
A lot of times, and this is a weird one, I don't want people to have any sort of emotional investment in my dating life. That is, I don't want them to be happy for me or, and most of all, sad for me if things don't work out.
What makes it even odder is that if you are a stranger or someone I barely know I'm likely to tell you everything but the closer we are the less I'll say on the matter. With one or two rare exceptions, my folks, siblings, and friends don't know anything about any non-pal woman I've gone out with.
(I tell my kids sometimes when I have a date because I think it's important to model good male/female relationships despite any relationship issues I might have.)
I'm bringing this up now as I was recently reading an post at Time Czar (which I think is a really cool name for a blog and always makes me feel terribly un-clever about the name I chose… I've considered changing my tag-line to "Pissing off the Internet One Woman at a Time," but it still wouldn't be as cool… and I digress). So, I was reading an entry at Time Czar and was reminded of an irritation I'd caused a woman friend by not telling her of a dining adventure I'd had (she would have liked to have had the opportunity to cheer me on); this was a lie of omission.
The lie of omission reminded me of several big fat lies I'd told The Dark-Haired Girl. Once in a while she'd ask if I'd had "a date lately" and I'd always tell her "no." She likely thought I was a hermit.
As it happens I have a thing for The Dark-Haired Girl*. Don't you think if I were inclined to tell people about my dining life she'd be the one I'd tell in the hopes of making her the tiniest bit jealous? Despite the fact that would be juvenile?
(By the way, I'm certain The Dark-Haired Girl has a thing for me too. But that's just the biology speaking; guys think every woman we get near has a thing for us. It's the way we're wired. Luckily, we're usually able to apply common sense to being-near-women situations which keeps us from making total asses of ourselves. Unless alcohol is involved.)
*It may be worth noting that I have a thing for most women regardless of hair color.
Technorati Tags: Relationships, Women
Posted by delmer at 9:29 PM | Comments (6)
July 7, 2008
Trailer
As you know I tweaked my back on a recent visit to Kentucky. Sitting and standing are hard on the back but I feel pretty good when I'm walking — much like a shark, I need to keep moving.
While at mom and dad's I took a walk to stretch things out and while I was out I snapped some pictures.
This is an old pickup backend that someone has put a tongue on and turned into a trailer.
Posted by delmer at 4:28 PM | Comments (0)
July 6, 2008
Humorus Shocking Surprises
[While this appears on July 5, it was written on July 10. I'm still playing catch-up due to my week without Internet access.]
Oh man. I wish you could have seen me getting out of the sweet mini-van this morning. My mother has been driving me to work, so I won't have to and so she'll have something to drive the boys around in. This morning we swung by McDonald's. In retrospect I should have probably walked into the restaurant to keep the sitting-and-getting-stiff time to a minimum. However, we drove through.
At work I felt pretty good and slipped a foot out the door so that it was suspended off the ground by leg strength and, apparently, my lumbar vertebrae. It hurt in a shocking (the pain always shocks me no matter how often I experience it) and surprising way (the surprise was new). The funny thing (oooh! and humorus) about back pain is that things will be fine and then you'll make a move that leads to a shockingly surprising, sometimes humorus, shock wave of agony (forgive me for using "shocking" and "shock wave" in the same sentence) — AND — your mind will tell you that undoing the move will undo the pain. It doesn't. It hurts too (which is more shocking but less of a surprise each time it happens), though admittedly, you've always got that thought in your mind that as soon as you reach ground zero as it applies to the start of the move the pain will subside. It usually does but by then you've already pissed yourself.
I eventually got the leg back in the van through the strategic use of my Ninja-like concentration and a little bit of cursing. As mom was in the car I had to make use of "shit shit shit" which is just barely adequate; I'm pretty sure one, big, giant "FUCK" would have had me straightened out in an instant.
A moment later I was standing beside the van and I felt pretty good. Mom asked if I were OK and could she carry my bag in for me (as I've said before, she is a Trophy Mom). To put her at ease I started to say, and I'll mention again as I stood there I felt great, "I'm a new man!" As I started that sentence I stood a little too erect. Now, in 99% of life's situations "too erect" doesn't exist for periods of time lasting less than four hours — as it applies to recovering backs things get dodgy.
The phrase came out sort of like, "I'm a…" and then I stood a little more upright, "aaaahhhh!"
And then I had to laugh.
Fifteen seconds later I had use of my legs again (there's never any pain in the legs, but trying to put them into service sometimes makes the back ache).
In 30 minutes I'll leave for a 25-minute walk to the chiropractor.
Right now I feel gr aaaaaaaah!
(Hmmm. That doesn't play well in type. Really, I feel pretty good right now.)
Technorati Tags: Back Pain, Health
Posted by delmer at 8:30 AM | Comments (4)
July 5, 2008
And now for some X-Rays
This one is from January of 2006 and would have been taken three months after a tweaking similar to the one of which I'm currently under a spell. I felt fine but was trying to take a preventative action with respect to back tweaks. Thus the X-ray.
You'll notice a small curvature to the right which, I'm pretty sure, was due to years of poor driving posture. I was pretty sure that without the curve I'd be a quarter inch taller.
You may have also noticed I have six lumbar vertebrae. A lot of people have four; most have five.
I have six. Or one more that can have something go wrong with it. Mostly I have six because of my height. Yau Ming has 32.
This next X-ray was taken two days ago when I had a serious list to one side.
You'll notice two things: One — the slight curve to the right, near the bottom, is gone and Two — it has been replaced by a more severe angling to the left near the top.
Well, this picture is a little dark. You'll have to trust me that the slight curve at the bottom is gone. The sharp left turn near the top is getting better each day and I should be standing upright 100 percent of the time in a day or two.
Here's a side-by-side. The newer image is on the left.
I realize the Internet if full of worse things than a twisted back that will eventually heal. Still, I workout, I take regular walks (I did more than than four miles today even with the back … walking helps, standing still and sitting kill me), I ride a bike on a regular basis, and I've lost weight. About the only thing left to do that might reduce stress on my back is PRS* and I hate to go that route as my jeans all have an appropriately-shaped wear spot on them — much like a Skoal ring dip users get on their back pockets — that might make me look like a poseur after surgery.
*Penis Reduction Surgery. What? You were expecting something else?
Technorati Tags: Back Pain, Health
Posted by delmer at 10:00 PM | Comments (7)
July 4, 2008
Another Back Tweak
Here at What's a Delmer Look Like we're all about experimentation. Just the other day I posted the results, if you want to call them that, of Delmer's Big Blog Experiement.
A while back I did an experiment to determine whether or not a spammer means girth or length when he says "add 3 to 5 inches" and it's my hope to segue Delmer's Pickup Line Experiment into Delmer's Experimental Sex Experiment should the former ever start producing results.
But that's all off in the future somewhere.
Today I'm happy to report the results of another experiment I've been running.
Once in a while I'll tweak my back. Three years ago this coming November I'd leaned forward to tie my shoes and in the process tweaked my back in a manner that defies description.
Well, not really. I can describe it. I leaned forward, tied my left shoe, leaned back just enough to switch to the right shoe, formed the "did I tweak my back" thought, leaned forward to tie the right shoe, went out the front door to take a walk and was in tears in about twenty steps. I'm guessing that tying the right shoe first would have changed my body geometry enough so that the tweaking would not have occurred.
But it did and it hurt enough that I eventually went to the doctor. I'd also tell a buddy about this tweaking. And he'd tell me about some stretching exercises he'd do whenever he performed a back tweaking. [Upon further review it looks like I may have known about the exercises prior to this tweaking. I'm too lazy, and my back hurts too much, for any major entry overhaul. I recovered from the November aching in pretty short order.]
Prior to the exercises anytime I'd tweak my back I'd have trouble standing straight up after I sat for any length of time. After ten or twenty steps I'd be OK until I sat down again. And this was always the case. Not once did I ever have a tweaking in which I'd be right as rain after one or two days. Sometimes the tweaking would be accompanied by a cattle-prod-to-the-lower-back sensation, other times it would be more like a je-ne-sais-what-the-fuck-was-that… more like a whisper of a problem that eventually turned into a muscle-tightening battle-of-the-bands on my back.
The shoe-tying tweak had to be the lightest tweak ever; it was the one that set me to the doctor (Thankgiving 2005.)
Anyway, after the shoe-tying tweak I started doing the stretches each time something odd hit my back; as soon as I could find a place to lie down. And each time I'd be in good shape the next day or two. And I wondered, "Is this a coincidence? Does the stretching help that much?"
The other night we were on our way to a restaurant. When I was getting into or out of a car (I'm not sure when it happened) I felt a tightness in the back. I really wanted to hit the floor and stretch a bit but wasn't sure the other restaurant patrons, despite their apparent laid-backness, were up for seeing me on the floor. I was going to have to wait.
My back would eventually hurt like nothing else. As long as I'm up and walking I'm fine — I'm sort of like a shark in that I have to keep moving. If I sit in a chair too long I'm totally screwed.
So, what we have is a case in which with no stretches my back always hurt for days. Then a period of my back being OK in pretty short order when stretching was involved. Followed by a single episode of non-stretching and the back from hell.
A true scientist would not stretch the next couple of back tweakings, which might take two years or more to happen (you can't force a tweak, they have to come on by surprise). There's a chance that the current tweaking is not like those I've had before though it certainly falls more into the "whisper" category than it does the "cattle prod" category.
Yes. That's what a true scientist would do in order to get a larger non-stretching sample.
I, however, as a non-government-funded pseudo-scientist, am going to hit the floor and stretch regardless of location each time I have the smallest hint of back discomfort.
I hate this.
Technorati Tags: Health, Back Pain
Posted by delmer at 8:44 PM | Comments (7)
July 3, 2008
Hot Water Heater
[Updated: I've removed 66% of the occurrence of "much" in the first paragraph. Really, sometimes my writing is even worse than usual.]
If you've ever seen The Wizard of Oz then you have a pretty good idea of the kind of cellar I have. It's such an appealing-looking space that as the boys and I were considering the house Jack remarked that he didn't care for it as he didn't like the cellar. I told him so long as he behaved he wouldn't be spending all that much time in it and he shouldn't worry fret over it.
My water heater, which I now suspect heats my water using superheated brimstone as I'm sure the appliance is, in fact, a portal to some very hot netherworld, is located in the cellar and goes about many of it's days doing water-heatery things without being too much trouble to the family.
The other day it decided to throw the family for a loop and quit working. And to say "the family" was thrown for a loop is an overstatement as my boys would never, ever, EVER, in a million years realize we were out of hot water without some sort of "Don't you think you need a shower" coaxing from me. Fortunately, it didn't come to that since I was able to make the "some thing's wrong with the water heater" jump simply by hopping in the shower for an afternoon refresher. I figured I'd also wash while I was in there.
Blah blah blah.
I got the part I needed to fix the water heater in the mail the other day and promptly set about getting things fixed. This, of course, required that I break one or two additional things and I chose the thermocouple and igniter.
The thing that sucks super-most about breaking the new pieces is that I was TEN MINUTES! away from having the whole project completed prior to taking the steps that would eventually break the unbroken pieces. Ten Minutes! people. Maybe five minutes. We'll never know now.
Anyway, I'd come to the point where I needed to screw the thermocouple into the piece that controls how hot the water gets (it has the pilot switch on it and the big knob that says Hot, Warm and Vacation on it. I knew what it was called when I went to buy one and don't care what it's called now.) I wasn't in the mood to get dirty and was doing the screwing-in by feel; I would typically say something like, "Women will tell you this hardly ever works" but I'm just not in the mood. Instead I'll tell you that my desire to not lie on my back and get dirty for 10 (maybe five) minutes led to hours of lying on my back and being on my knees.
And there was a fair amount of blood. At one point I looked down at my left thigh and thought, "What the hell? Where'd that come from?" A complimentary smear on my right thigh made me a bit more concerned. I mean, we're not talking Nightmare on Elm Street quantities of blood but still more than I like to be involved with when it comes to home-improvement projects. As it happens I had a small scrape on right forefinger that was overachieving.
In the end I had hot water, I'd replaced the thermocouple and I'd repaired the igniter.
And I learned two things.
1) At the point you decide to bring your pry bar and electric drill to your hot-water-heater-repair activity you need to step back. Especially if you find yourself muttering "why would someone design something like this?" (because they didn't), "there's got to be an easier way" (there is). At one point I needed to pull a plug-like thing out of the front of a part of my hot water heater. In my mind's eye I knew exactly what it looked like and how it would come out. Even as it didn't pop out like I thought it would my mind's eye refused to redesign the piece and wandered to pry bars and power tools. At one point, while I was drilling on it, I thought, "You dumbass. There's a clip on the back of that piece and if you remove it it'll pop off." I then removed two screws, pulled an assembly out, and in under two minutes (maybe one) had the "plug" removed.
2) We'd solve our oil problem if it ever became a law that homeowners could not do their own home-repair projects. It seems that anything I get involved with takes a dozen (maybe nine) trips to the hardware store.
The good news: If I ever have to do this again I'll be able to get things fixed in under an hour. Let's see… based on my current age of 47, and the fact I've only done this once, the task should come around again when I'm 94.
Maybe I should put some notes down.
Technorati Tags: Home Improvement
Posted by delmer at 12:28 PM | Comments (10)
July 2, 2008
DBBE - The Wrap Up
Alright people. We're bringing a close to Delmer's Big Blog Experiment.
As you may recall I was curious about how the tools I use to monitor traffic worked. One tool was giving me X visitors per day and the other tool was giving me, I said, 4X — upon closer review it was more like three point something X.
The tool that gives me X is Statcounter.
The tool that gives me 3.xX is AWStats and it sits right on my server (which sits on a shelf right behind me).
I'd thought that AWStats was high as it counted everything that loaded every time — Granny Gallery, My Kids pictures, the Weather Gizmo, Rotating Boobie-Thon — as a visit each time they loaded which would multiply my visitors by four.
As always, the WADLL analysis comes with a disclaimer: I'm not saying my methodology was correct or that my results are accurate. There may be a much better way to do this. But, this only took about 10 minutes to set up and it served to meet my needs.
So.
I removed all the non-fascinating-stories-about-my-life stuff (that is, I just left text, and removed the sidebars) for about a week. One thing people noticed is that the blog loaded a lot faster (even all the way to far away Australia where it's winter, and cold and where the data bits travel as ones and zeros instead of zeros and ones and therefore need to be reassembled using a reverse-bit AlGoreRhythm for each page refresh).
The results:
Where Statcounter provides X visitors…
With Sidebars AWStats provided between: 2.9x and 3.63x
Without Sidebars AWStats provided between: 2.94x and 3.9x
The test didn't run all that long as I don't think it needed to. Had I let it go a month without and then with sidebars I'm guessing the average would have been the same for both as I'm certain a "with sidebars" day would eventually, and soon, hit 3.9.
I don't know what to think. I know Statcounter is missing my visits to my blog.
I'm not going to worry about it.
It looks like a lot of visitors, per Statcounter, come from Google Image searches and end up in one of the Archive pages. I'd considered that maybe the archives were loading four images and that was skewing things. Each archive page I visited loaded well over four images — so that is unlikely it.
Anyway, as I said, I'm not going to fret over the numbers. I'm more curious about how the tools work and why they don't agree than anything else.
[Ah, I almost forgot. It could be as simple as screwed-up placement of Statcounter code in the templates. At one time Statcounter was reporting far fewer hits than it does now as I'd left it out of a couple of the templates. I do not have the Statcounter blocking cookie installed on my computer, which would keep my visits from recording, so I have trouble explaining why visits from me go unnoticed sometimes. Finally, I don't know what role having javascript and/or cookies enabled or disabled would play in this. In a nutshell: I'm the weakest link.]
Technorati Tags: Blogging, Blogs, Statistics
Posted by delmer at 10:01 AM
July 1, 2008
Once you've gone Mac
You'll never go back ...
While I felt fairly clever when that came to me I'm certain it has been said before. And, no, I'm not buying a Mac.
And I really don't have time to make fun of my problem. Which is: My computer is, once again, booting to a cursor.
The drive is recognized and appears to be in good shape. All the data is there. The little piece of the magic that causes an operating system to load has run out of pixie dust.
I, at this point, don't think it's the drive.
For the record, though, if I end up having to reload XP and all the apps, this will be the fourth time since mid-January. (Once was a hard drive updgrade. Another was the same problem I have now. The third was the new drive going into click-and-lose-your-shit mode. And, possibly, today.)
I shut my computer down using the Start button or the button on the Dell that does a pretty little shutdown! It isn't like I rip this thing out of it's dock while it's writing data, close the lid while it's still on and stick it in bag where the temperature climbs to 1000 F (22C). Yes, I know: Poor me.