The Virtual Tourist

2/1/2007 - Master librarians, by Jove

2007-02-01T20:33:00.000-08:00

My boys love books. The eldest has recently fallen in love with the Magic Tree House series (as have I) by Mary Pope Osborne. In this series, a brother and sister discover a tree house that takes them to places, far and wide, real and occasionally, less so. In the course of their adventures, they learn something, but not enough to put off a 5-year old boy.

Clearly, these books are operating on the same systems as amphetamines. They have become the most powerful reward in the house. They are requested during bedtime, bath and beyond. When no other form of discipline will work, I can always offer to read an extra chapter (or God forbid, deprive him of his daily chapter).

But there is another bibliophile in the house. One that goes "booch, booch" as he waddles about. Every night, I read him "I love you just the way you are" by Virginia Miller. As I read each page, he cackles with glee. I'm not sure I get the joke, but that's okay.

Of course, what he really wants to read is the magic treehouse series. Peer pressure is a powerful thing.

Astronomy

To preface this bit, I have to start by mentioning that I am quite afraid of heights. Some would say that this is one of the few irrational fears from which I suffer. I would contend that being afraid of heights is extremely rational. So be it.

I have always had difficulty wrapping my head around the difference between our inner rocky planets and our outer gaseous planets. I mean, what is a gaseous planet? Does it have a core? If you tried to step on it, would you float all the way through and come out the other side? Just thinking about that gives me palpitations.

This week, I learned the answer to these (and other) questions. It turns out that I don't have to guess at what would happen when attempting to "land" on Jupiter. The spacecraft Galileo did the work for me, sending a probe to land on the planet. The probe operated for about an hour, sending pictures and information back to the mothership. After that, the combined heat and pressure associated with falling through the planet's crust wrent it assunder. Whew! And I was worried.

When you focus your telescope on Mars, you get to see the rocky contours on the planet. You may think that you are seeing contours when you then turn to Jupiter, but really, all you are seeing is weather. Powerful storms, including hurricanes bigger than the Earth, last seemingly forever with no land to slow them down. But what lies beneath the surface?

As the probe dropped into Jupiter, it encountered hydrogen. But not that run of the mill hydrogen we find Zeppelins, water and high-quality protein shakes. Liquid metal hydrogen. And I thought I had difficulty understanding a gaseous planet.

18,000 terra firma steps today. Praise the Lord.

1/25/2006 - Of nameless streets and lousy presidents

2007-01-24T21:32:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a day on which it was easy to imagine myself the J. G. making his way across frigid plains of Montana. The day was such when it was convenient to walk 4+ miles on the way home from work. My car was in the garage (many thanks to the wonderful people at the Memorial Drive Sunoco for their excellent work on my car). And my office isn't terribly convenient to public transport.

I knew that there was a T-station somewhere in the area, so I mapquested it and set off after work. Now, in truth, I knew that the walk would end up being around 2 miles, so that was no surprise. What I did not realize was that my map contained many unlabeled streets between me and the T. I must admit that, being of the temperment that I am, I rather enjoyed the experience of waiting for the world to converge with my paper representation of it and, eventually, I got home.

Presidents

An astute reader notes my tendency to recognize the good in our presidents. I'll take a stab at recognizing some lesser qualities today. But first, I have to admit that I like Ike. In 1956, Eisenhower was wrestling with the Soviet Union's occupation of Hungary when the Suez Canal was nationalized by Egypt. An alliance of the U.K., France and Israel occupied parts of Egypt. Embarassed that his allies would be occupying one country as he was trying to clean up another occupation, Eisenhower went to work on the trio, forcing them to disengage without any consessions.

Imagine that, a president who holds his allies to the same standards as his enemies. So, President 43, I hand you 10 demerits for coddling the autocracies of Egypt, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia even as you hand other autocracies their pink slips.

While I'm at it, I'll Bush another 15 debits for one of his lovely accounting decisions. While pushing through the Medicare Perscription plan, Bush had to balance a noble aim (helping folks pay for expensive perscriptions) with a significant cost. The solution? Decrease the accounting horizon from 10 years to 5 years. By ignoring the costs that were known to be coming as the program expanded, Bush was able to promote a "cheaper" plan.

Astronomy

Contrary to hopes, there is not ice in the southern pole of our moon. Remember to pack some when you next visit.

13,800 steps today. Cheers,

1/21/2007 - Battling for knuckles and doomed moons

2007-01-21T17:35:00.000-08:00

"Walk down that lonesome road all by yourself
Don't turn your head, back over your shoulder
And only stop to rest yourself when the silver moon
Is flying high above the trees.

If I had stopped to listen once or twice
If I had closed my mouth and opened my eyes
If I had cooled my head and warmed my heart
Id not be on this road tonight"

I think James Taylor speaks for all of us when he suggests that if you ever choose to hike from Boston to Alaska, you should probably bring a companion.

On the home front

I am suffering through a civil war of my own making. The first thing you have to know is that "knuckles" was one my eldest's first words. We were driving to the family on Friday afternoon and the wife was letting him hold her hand to keep him calm. The position became too uncomfortable and the she pulled her hand back to the front seat. It turned out he had been rubbing her knuckles, which were now sore. As the beloved hand return to the front seat my eldest whined:

"Knuckles..."

Ever since, he has comforted himself by grabbing someone's knuckles and going to work. Well, it was inevitable, but the baby would see this process and learn through imitation. The baby doesn't really get into it the way the eldest does, but he does indulge. Well, lately, the eldest has decided that my left knuckles are preferable to my right knuckles. Why? Because they have more dry skin, apparently.

That's fine, the elder can have my left and the younger can have my right. Alas, the toddler continued to learn from his idol. During dinner this week, I offered one hand to each. The toddler immediately pointed at my left and burst into tears.

Just a typical evening in a typical household.

Presidents

My sister and I used to use "Chester A. Arthur" in our e-mails in the place of :) I must confess that I new next to nothing about him at the time, I just liked the way it rolled off of my e-mail. I recently listened "Assassination Vacation" by Sarah Vowell (excellent book) from which I learned the following:

Garfield, as a president, felt like Civil Service reform was probably the top priority facing the nation. He may well have been right. But that wasn't much of a campaign slogan, so he ran on his Civil War heroism and "waving the bloody shirt," similar to referring to Democrats as "cheese-eating surrender-monkeys." Regardless of these guaranteed tactics, Garfield could not have won the presidency without the help of Roscoe Conklin, and the New York political machine, so a deal was struck: In return for New York's support, Garfield would take on Arthur as his VP. Let's just say that Arthur was a prime example of the kind of civil service that needed reforming.

Well, Arthur, like most VPs of the time, didn't play a very active roll in the shaping of policy until a deranged would-be ambassador took it upon himself to assassinate Garfield. Shortly after Arthur took office, he angered his ex-Patrons by pushing through the civil service reform that Garfield had championed, sort of as a tribute.

For reasons I can't explain, I find that action heroic and touching. 25 points to Garfield and 5 to Arthur.

Astronomy

Mars' moons are very unlike our own. Ours is an erstwhile piece of us, dislodged after a comet hit us. It is slowly spiraling away form us and will someday burst free from our gravitational grasp.

By contrast, Mars' moons are most likely asteroids that came too close and got trapped by Mars' natural charm. The one that interests me most is Phobos. Unlike our moon (which something like 400,000 kilometers away) Phobos is less than 10,000 kilometers away. Why? I'm not really sure, but it is trapped in an orbit that brings it closer to Mars with every pass. In a mere 50 to 100 million years, Phobos will crash into Mars, accompanied by an unbelievable display of fireworks.

Book your tickets today.

1/19/2006 - Three emptinesses

2007-01-18T22:09:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine was taking a course in college. I can't remember the subject. The syllabus contained Thoreau's Walden (side note - when I read Walden, I was moved with an urge to build my own house. M.O.M. suggested that I try building a flower box instead. This pretty much cured me of any urge to build anything since). During the discussion of the book, someone commented

"But that couldn't happen today. There just aren't unpopulated spaces like that anymore."

Clearly this was someone who hasn't been to Montana. Montana is a state with 900,000 individuals living in close to 150,000 square miles. Compare that to over 6,000,000 Massachusites living on just 10,500 square miles. That's right, MA is almost 100 times more densely populated than MT. And that's not the whole story. When we walk in the Blue Hills of Massachusetts, we like to climb up to the tower at the highest peak and survey the panorama. We can see Boston in the distance, a lonely isle of humanity among the roiling seas of trees. And we're a dense state.

In Montana, the sky isn't just the limit, it's the lay of the land. Take that, Malthus.

On the home front

The wife has noticed an emptiness on the couch, where my eldest has been for the past week. Over 8 days, he has gone from palely sitting on the couch doing little, to being frustrated at having to be still, to returning to school. He still has a noticable limp, but I can see that he has pretty much regained most of his mobility today. He may well have taken more steps than me. I am amazed with sanguinity with which he has accepted most of this episode.

Space

The last emptiness is a favorite of mine. Continuing along the theme of dark matter (as it applies to our solar system) the same Astronomer (Urbain-Jean-Joseph Le Verrier) who discovered Neptune by its effect on Uranus' orbit noticed that Mercury's orbit exhibits some irregularities. Hoping to cement his legend as planeteer extraordaire, he did some fast calculations and arrived at his best estimate of the closest planet to the sun, which he dubbed Vulcan.

Vulcan's nonexistance did little stem the enthusiastic search for it from about 1860 to 1910. It was no lesser a personage than Albert Einstein who eventually showed that those irregularites stemmed not from dark matter, but from a Newtonian inability to describe how gravity should effect over relatively short distances. The theory of relativity (general, I think) better predicted Mercury's orbit.

Many thanks to Astronomy Cast for providing much of the detail which I have woven into my narrative. All mistakes are, of course, mine, except for those foist upon me by the C.I.A.

18,000 hollow steps today. Cheers,

1/16/2007 - Dark matter, as the crow flies

2007-01-16T11:52:00.000-08:00

Not too long ago, I passed through a town called "Crow Agency." If you said "Native Americans," you were right. Crow agency is actually the capital of "Crow Nation," indigenously known as Apsáalooke. Crow is an attempt at translation, but it's more likely that the eponymous bird is extinct.

I must say, I have never fully digested the nation within a nation status of the reservations. Crow Nation has a 3-branch government, much as our states and Federal government does. Are there any crimes which must be extradited to state of federal government? Surely the nation gets to take advantage of social benefits. How does taxation work?

One can imagine that, as I passed through Crow Agency, I found the answers to these and many other questions. In reality, I had a little time to browse through an article on Wikipedia and that will have to do.

On the home-front

While I have been having some difficulty counting my steps since I switched pedometers, I have had little trouble counting my eldest's steps on many recent days. Zero. Like others with his condition, he is prone to bleeding in his joints and muscles. Bleeding and swelling in his right thigh took him off line.

For the first day or two, he logged no steps and was okay with that, preferring to sit quietly on a couch. More recently, he has gone stir crazy. At first, he would crawl across the room when nobody was looking. As he has healed, he has taken to hobbling around, looking for all the world like he is looking for his cane.

He will be back in school soon and will suffer no long-term effects of the past week. Not all of his friends are so lucky. I count my blessings.

The Universe

On to a lighter topic -- dark matter. Dark matter is a perennially fun topic for hacks such as myself. It's just fun to say. It sounds like the intersection between Star Wars and Harry Potter. I heard an excellent discussion of dark matter on Astrocast (but more about that in a minute). The two things you have to know to enjoy the upcoming observation are [1] that dark matter is something we can only detect indirectly, through its effect of non-dark matter and [2] that dark matter is just a euphamism for "stuff we don't know about."

To the first point, dark matter is called dark matter because we can't see it. It emits no particles that we can interact with in the way we interact with those particles emitted by, say, Barack Obama. You can imagine astoronomers as a little like a driver with 20/20 vision who just can't see stop signs (and you know who you are). As the astronomer drives down the road, he notices an oddity, that cars seem to pause at certain intersections, and infers the existance of stop signs. Similarly, the astronomer looks at the sky and notices stars rotating too slowly, or whatever, and infers the presence of matter that he cannot detect.

To the second point, you have to think of the universe as a grand tally. We more or less know how much mass the universe has, but we can only 4% of it. We call the rest dark matter. Or weirder yet, dark energy. As we discover things we didn't know about (e.g. that neutrinos have mass) we move some of the chits from the "dark matter" category into the "stuff we know about" category.

Now here's the observation, which really concretizes the whole notion of dark matter for me: Nepute was once dark matter. Oh, Neptune is pretty much the same Neptune it ever was, but there was a time when we couldn't find it, but we inferred its existance from the odd wobbles that Uranus took. Then our telescopes (and math) got better and we found Neptune. And then Pluto. And then the ice ball formerly planetized as Pluto. I'm still bitter. But at least I admit that I'm wrong.

Anyhoo. So dark matter: Lots of little Neptunes or a disturbance in the force? You be the judge.

Podcasts

So one of my favorite podcasts used to be Slacker Astronomy. I say used to be, because the team split up and formed the nucleii of two new podcasts: Slackerpedia Galactica and Astronomy Cast. Left with no choice, I started listening to both. And I enjoy both.

SG is, in many ways, an expanded version of SA. They still do some scripted skits, they walk through recent news and they now have an increased staff, including a tenured professor, to expand the range of anlaysis that they are able to provide. As an added bonus, Aaron has come out from behind the scenes, which I think improves the chemistry. Aaron, who lives too close to comfort, would probably hunt me down and shoot me if I didn't mention their awesome Slackerpedia which is based on the Wiki and provides excellent articles about all things Astonomical.

Astronomy Cast is a to Slackerpedia what the New York Times magazine is to the New York Times. It is a 30 minute discussion of something that SG might have discussed in 7 minutes. On their self-proclaimed "fact based journey through the cosmos" they hit such topics as planamos and dark matter (so far). Additionally, you might consider giving AstroCast a listen for the sole purpose of hearing one of the loveliest voices in the podosphere (Pamela's). It's a nice touch that Travis from SG supplied the music for AstroCast.

9,700 pitiful steps today. Cheers,

1/9/2007 - Of pinched nerves, Catholics and other sundries

2007-01-09T20:54:00.000-08:00

I saw a susquatch today. Well, I thought I saw a susquatch. It turned out to be stump. But I definitely heard one yesterday. I'll keep you posted.

At rest

What I actually saw, today, was my PCP. He gave me the whole neurological exam and decided that I have a pinched nerve. I can believe it. I'm downing ibuprofen like pez, which seems to be having some effect, but would probably work better with more artificial cherry flavor. (That's flavour for my British readers).

Presidents

In 1928, Alfred E. Smith (what, me run for office?) was the first Catholic to ever receive the nomination from a major party. It took absolutely no time for that campaign to slink into mud-slinging ugliness. Hoover's minions (possibly with no direction from Hoover himself) took it upon themselves to make it clear that Smith intended to:

* Abolish protestant marriages

* Install Catholocism as the State Religion

* Serve the pope first and America second

Crazy, huh? I wonder what kind of a reception today's Talk Radio would give the Democratic Nominee who happened to be an observant Muslim? -5 points to Hoover for allowing that to take place.

16,700 inchoate steps today. C-h-e

1/8/2007 - A wall in the heat

2007-01-08T21:11:00.000-08:00

Something I passed and definitely meant to blog about is the famous "Wal-Drug" on route 90. Some 300+ miles before you reach it, you start seeing signs by the highway. Wal-drug has dinosaurs. Wal-drug has coffee. Wal-drug has museums.

Actually, I am a little disappointed in the glitziness that Wal-drug has become, complete with casinos, shows, etc. But its story is what is so cool, and that it can't help but keep.

My understanding is that Wal-drug was quiet little store somewhere on the route to Mount Rushmore. During the summer, the occasional tourist would stop by in desperate need of water. So the owners put out some signs saying "free ice water" and the tourists just flocked in. From there, they built this glorious empire I now see before me.

At rest

I recently got a new pedometer -- I think I may have blogged that already. I can't help but notice that my footage has been way down since I did. This may be coincidence as much has been going on in my life over the last week (what with birthdays, grandparents and happy kiwis). But it might also be because my old pedometer was counting extra steps.

I hope not.

Astronomy

I've mentioned before that the infamous IAU planetary definition does a better job casting out small planets than big ones. Here's a fun fact for today: Jupiter casts more light than can be explained by reflecting the sun's light. Current theory suspects that some of the light is caused by Jupiter's ball of gas gradually contracting (ye olde PV=nRT, or to make that more authentically old fashioned, be PV=nRTe). But even that can't explain all the light we're getting. It's possible that Jupiter is burning its deuterium (heavy hydrogen), much as the sun burns hydrogen. Apparantly that's not such a hard trick, but I can't help but be struck by the fact that Jupiter is behaving like a poor-man's star.

A whopping 7,400 steps today. Cheers,

1/6/2007 - Big feet to fill

2007-01-06T15:31:00.000-08:00

Well, now that I am in the Northwest, I am in Sasquatch territory. I mention this because I just listened to a Science Friday piece with a professor (possibly in Idaho) who does his work on looking for Sasquatches in the area. A couple of snippets from the show give you a feel for the guy:

He was an expert in footprints before he fell in with the Sasquatch crowd
What drew him to the research was footprints he was shown that looked neither fake nor like anything identifiable
He is largely tolerated by his school, which supports his right to research without implying that they share his convictions

He does not claim that Sasquatch exists; he merely researches the possibility with hope that he will someday find incontrovertible evidence.

Something I found interesting about the program: The host asked him why we have no run-ins with sasquatches if they exist in large enough numbers to propagate the species. A fair question I thought. The answer was that: we do have plenty of run-ins. Given the low population density of the areas in which sasquatch are thought to inhabit, there are plenty of folks who think they saw footprints, or even really large humanoids.

Why does that interest me? Because it sounds incredibly like the debate over the presence of mountain lions in Northern New England. While this debate is a little less fantastical, it has the same feel and is admitted by all to be inconclusive. There have been no lion carcasses found in New England for 50 years. The only known lions in America are far away in Florida and the Northwest (of course). But folks in the region affected have tons of stories of seeing footprints or really big cats.

Some of the sightings turned out to be wildly different animals (raccoons, cows) but eventually, someone found some veritable lion skat (or poop, as we call it in my household). Of course it was possible to do so because the scientists could compare the evidence to that of other known mountain lions. There's really nothing comparable for poor little sasquatch. Also, it should be pointed out that we have never discounted the possibility that a single mountain lion escaped from some zoo -- that there are no indigenous mountain lions in New England.

Two final thoughts from the program: First, there is another bizarre piece of evidence for Sasquatch in the Northwest. There is a tape. One can find it on youtube. It is about 16 seconds long and sure looks like a man in a monkey suit walking upright. The speaker on NPR said: "it looks a lot like a man in a monkey suit until you look at a man in a monkey suit." Apparently, in the enhanced version of the tape, you can see muscles and shoulder blades move. I watched the unenhanced version of the video. I can't.

Second, Jane Goodall (yes, that Jane Goodall) was asked about Sasquatch on a prior Science Friday. Her answer? She sure wishes they existed.

Me, too. That would be cool.

At rest

Is my eldest Jewish? Perhaps. Let's examine the evidence.

First, there is his kippah, which he has taken to. We started encouraging him to wear it everyday a few weeks ago. I had a pessimistic feeling that he wouldn't like it. I was wrong. He sometimes reminds me to get it for him when he is getting it dressed and leaves it on all day. He really likes it and I can't quite say why. Only one other boy at his daycare wears one. And me. We've had so much success with the Eldest that we have started encouraging the toddler to wear his, with some success.

Second, there is the fact that he walks around singing prayers and songs at the top of his lungs. He likes to sing and certainly sings non-Jewish songs as well. But he often can be found singing Grace after meals or the Hannukah song. I'm not sure how I feel about his belting out these prayers while in the bathroom.

But perhaps the strongest evidence is that he walks around saying things like:

"Does he know that I'm Jewish? Dad, I'm not sure he knows that I'm Jewish." Given that he said such a thing after someone wished him a Happy Hannukah, I think there is a basic concept that he doesn't quite get. That's okay. I imagine this phase will pass on its own.

Presidents

I recently set up a project for myself, which I can imagine taking me years to delve into. I created template that includes 7 categories of ratings for each president:

Doing things that I approve of
Extra curricular activities
Legacy
Popularity
Financial policy
Leadership
external metrics

Whenever I hear (or think of) something interesting, I tag a couple of points (or negative points) on to the President's score. For example, I might give Jefferson 20 points for authoring the Declaration of independence or Jimmy Carter -5 points for calling it "apartheid." My goal is eventually be able to rank all of the presidents in my own, totally subjective, opinion.

Some friends have asked me whether past presidents call me up, looking to ensure their positive review. They don't. Thanks for asking.

24,500 big steps today. Cheers,

1/4/2007 - And now for something completely different

2007-01-04T17:02:00.000-08:00

Boston, Detroit, Chicago, Baltic, Mediteranean [sorry] Kalamazoo, Madison. Cities that I have passed through, that everyone knows well. But there is one city that does not share this universal recognition. Why is that the world never remembers the birthplace of Johann Gambolputty de von Ausfern- schplenden- schlitter- crasscrenbon- fried- digger- dingle- dangle- dongle- dungle- burstein- von- knacker- thrasher- apple- banger- horowitz- ticolensic- grander- knotty- spelltinkle- grandlich- grumblemeyer- spelterwasser- kurstlich- himbleeisen- bahnwagen- gutenabend- bitte- ein- nürnburger- bratwustle- gerspurten- mitz- weimache- luber- hundsfut- gumberaber- shönedanker- kalbsfleisch- mittler- aucher von Hautkopft?

Yes, there is a city called Ulm in Wyoming and you can bet your sweet bippy that I managed to walk through it. With an elevation of nearly 1 mile and a population to match. What can I say about the city? Not much, as it doesn't have a web presence. I understand that they do have a train that runs to Austin, MN.

At rest

I got to live out a sampling of my imagined walk today. As I was on my way to work, my car simply stopped. Well technically, it went from doing 60 to doing 0 in relatively rapid fashion. I had always been under the impression that, if I ran out of gas on the highway, I could coast for miles. In fact, I barely coasted more than a 10th of a mile before coming to a stop on the shoulder.

So a tow truck dropped my car off at a garage and me at work, 5.5 miles away. I realized that this gave me a wonderful opportunity. When my car was fixed, I hiked the 5.5 miles back along the highway to pick up my car. At times, I was walking along service roads, just out of sight of the highway, but often, I was separated only by a low metal barrier. I imagined myself doing this every day for a year, making my way across the country. Quite enjoyable, albeit lonely.

So here's my plan. Every morning I kiss the wife and kids and start off on my walk. Then the chauffeur packs them into the limo and drives them to my next destination. I figure I can't need more than $500,000. I'm accepting a wide range of corporate sponsorships. Exxon-Mobile? Greenpeace?

The universe

There are about 140 moons in the solar system. If you don't count Charon (now, technically, an object revolving around a dwarf planet) there are about 140. To 2 significant figures. Where are all these moons?

Well, Mercury has none. Venus? None. Earth has 1! Mars has 2. So far, so good. Hold on to your hats.

Jupiter: 62
Saturn: 33
Uranus: 27
Neptune: 13

One site I found listed Pluto as having 3. Maybe they're all just Kuiper Belt Objects.

I think that there is some difficulty counting the moons of our outer gaseous giants. I was thumbing through the moons of Jupiter and the problem is that many of the moons follow the orbits of the rings. In fact, it is possible that there is an arbitrary line drawn between the largest objects in the rings and the smallest moons. And although they may not be as famous as Saturn's, each of the four gaseous giants has a set of rings. So it all comes back to Pluto.

Of course.

The problem with Pluto was that the world of astronomers decided that they needed a clear delinear between "planets" and the countless large balls of ice orbitting beyond Neptune's orbit. While that delineation is a little cleaner, problems still exist including: where do you draw the line between a large planet and a small dead star? When is an object part of a ring and when is it a moon? And what about Ceres?

The real purpose of all of this, I am convinced, is to keep astronomers employed. And this blogger, for one, is grateful.

5,500 astronomical steps today. Cheers,

1/3/2007 - Out of hibernation

2007-01-03T22:04:00.000-08:00

Everyone has New Year's Resolutions. Mine are

Slouch less
Smell roses
Don't get involved in land wars in Asia
Blog more

Facing reality, I have less time to blog than I used to, and the research I was doing on cities was a major barrier to blogging at all. This is too bad as I have passed through many wonderful cities and parks since I last posted. I'll try and mention some, but I won't be comprehensive. In the interest in blogging at all, I will be toying with the format. I don't really know where it will end up.

Walking

Where did JG spend his New Year's Eve? In Yellowstone park! The JG who didn't mind going to bed at 2 might have come up with some wonderful tidbits about the park, but the posting JG will have to be content to mention some of the names of the places I passed:

Silver Gate
Soda Butte
Fossil Forest

and I'm current resting at Tower Junction. Next on my agenda? Mammoth Hot Springs. How psyched am I? In the past 13 months, I've taken nearly 6,000,000 steps and crossed much of the continent. I think I'm due for steam bath. Probably a bad idea.

At rest

I'm beginning to feel the effects of my walking. Or at least, those steps I take with a toddler in one arm. To add to my minor back and knee aches, I have developed some significant pain in my shoulder. It's pretty clear that this caused by sleeping on the shoulder as I wrap myself around 1 of 2 boys. I'm looking for some better position in which to lie, but honestly, I don't have that much control over my sleeping position. Ibuprofen has worked wonders, but I suspect an M.D. could do better.

Presidents

I heard an interesting podcast about Senators running for President. Only 2 sitting senators have ever been elected (although tons have been elected with some congressional experience). If the primaries were held tomorrow, each major party would probably put up a senator (McCain and Clinton). And this may indeed come to pass. But it seems like the parties are currently in a staring contest. If either one were to put up a Governor instead, the course of the election could be changed.

This is not mere voodoo, a la the correlation between mini-skirts and White House control. Members of Congress face a number of very real challenges when running, most notably [1] a long record of easily attackable votes and [2] lack of appearance of executiveness. Both were very evident in the 1996 and 2004 elections. Sitting presidents made mockeries of confusing, nuanced votes ("I voted for the bill before I voted against it"). I also remember an article from 1996 that described how, despite a Clinton-tantrum thrown at the media, it was Dole who held the stigma of a temper.

So what will happen? Will a last minute series of primaries thrust Giuliani into the role on nominee? Will Vilsack the Darkhorse defeat Dewey? In my opinion: no. Both Voters and opponents think differently in Primaries than in Presidential elections, so there would seem to be no guaranty that the best candidate will end up on the ticket.

I can't help but think that Howard Dean the candidate may indeed have faired better than John Flip Flop Kerry. And how much better would Howard Dean the Governor have done than either gentleman?

11,000 reformatted steps today. Cheers,

10/25-28/2006 - Hey, Mom:

2006-12-07T20:37:00.000-08:00

It turns out that slouching is good for you. To quote Wait, Wait don't tell me:

Coming up next "The benefits of putting your eye out" and "When Ben Mortensen jumps off a bridge, you should too."

69,700 steps over these 4 days and, yes, my knuckles were scraping the ground. Cheers,

10/22-24/2006 - Dell, MN

2006-11-16T17:14:00.000-08:00

I understand that it's a large company, but I was still surprised to find that Dell has its own city out in Minnesota.

I actually think that I have been mapquested again -- Dell appears on mapquest, but there's no record of internal streets. It's just an asterisk at the corner of 97th street and 480th ave.

And what the heck does that mean? From what I can tell, the counties in Southern Minnesota lay out streets in grids. There doesn't seem to be much between them, but you'll see 350th ave followed by 330th ave some time later. These are the North/South. East/West are the streets (100th, 97th, etc.) When you cross into a new county, the numbering starts over again, although 97th street will keep its name.

I tried googling to find the origin of these conventions, but I couldn't find anything. What I did find was the National Swine Registry, so that will have to do.

42,700 porcine steps today. Cheers,

10/20-21/2006 - Duration Creep and the Holy Land

2006-11-14T10:52:00.000-08:00

As all 8 readers of my blog know, I am big fan of podcasts. I listen to them during my commutes. I listen to them during my numerous walks. I even listen them while doing my chores at night --when the wife isn't around for pleasant chats (I promise). Because I have so many different ways of fitting in my Podcasts, I greatly appreciate that they are of varying lengths. I listen to my 10 minute podcasts when I only have 10 minutes and my 1 hour podcasts for the bigger walks.

One of the nice things about the podosphere (if such a term exists) is the lack of rules surrounding it. If you have a podcast, you get to set the format. When it airs, how often and, of course, for how long. If you have a good show, your fans will get there. Of course, if there are no rules, there's no reason why you couldn't expand the length of your podcast every now and then. This sets me into a tizzy, as it means that some podcasts which used to fit during my commute, no longer do.

Today's blog entry is about my favorite Podcast that has undergone "duration creep."

I found Israelisms while looking for political blogs one night. It wasn't exactly what I was looking for, but I ended up growing quite fond of it. Charlie and Carol are a couple of Reform Jews living in Israel, having moved there around 10 years ago. She's a nurse, he's a stand-up (why are so many of my favorite podcasters stand-ups? Probably not coincidence). They do talk about politics, but mostly they talk about daily life, and the two are inseparable in Israel.

I like their podcast because they have a good rhythm. I also like it because I have family in Israel, and their podcast gives me a good flavor of daily life, that I sometimes don't get when visiting my family. Even better, my family in Israel is quite observant, so I like having a window into the less observant culture of Israel.

What I don't like about it, is that the duration has crept up.

There are close to 90 episodes available on their website by now, I started from the beginning and I'm up around 20 myself (psst: I got rid of my TV too, sort of). When I started, the average episode was around 25 minutes, just perfect for the trip home from work. By #20, they were up over 40 minutes. I generally have to pause the podcast when I get home and wait until after the boys are asleep to pick it up again. You can imagine my agony.

Oh, I almost forgot to say: I also like Israelisms because Carol is a huge basketball fan, and how else am I going get my news about Tel Aviv Maccabi? So Carol and Charlie, if you ever find yourselves in Boston, I promise to take you to a BC or Celtics game.

30,500 transatlantic steps over these two days. Cheers,

10/18-19/2006 - Election day

2006-11-13T11:49:00.000-08:00

I have a number of thoughts about the mid-term elections, what they mean, what they foretell and why I should care, but the post that I really want write is about forecasting elections. As a professional (insurance) and amateur (sports) forecaster, I always get swept away in the excitement of predicting the results of big elections. It goes beyond politics, it's just and exciting thing to forecast. Much more exciting then, say, the weather.

Usually, when I do my modeling, I have the luxury of using fairly objective data: money, hits, yards, minutes, etc. This is not the case in modeling elections, where data includes such things as approval and intensity. And even so, it could be objective, but approval and intensity are measured by asking people questions and writing down their answers. People may lie, overestimate, change their minds, all of which goes to making these political forecasts that much more suspect.

Going back to 1996, it seems to me that polls have tended to understate Republican results. I distinctly remember that Dole came closer than the polls would have guessed, and that Gore was actually polling ahead of Bush (by more than the popular vote eventually suggested). Whenever the results would deviate from the polls, various pollsters would talk about Republican turnout and how they were the more motivated electorate. Well, it turns out that polls measure the likelihood of "likely voters" to actually vote. The term is called "intensity." A typical question might go something like this:

Q: What party are you likely to vote for next Tuesday?
A: Democratic
Q: How strongly do you feel about voting for the Democratic party?
A: Very strongly.

So you can see, it's not entirely objective. But polling groups make up for the lack of objectivity by maintaining consistency. If the wording stays the same from election to election, then changes in the results mean something, although it's not always clear what those changes mean.

For those who followed the most recent election (including, I believe, 100% of my readers) there will be no surprise when I say that there was a huge swing in "intensity" in 2006. Republican intensity decreased. Democratic intensity increased. Why? Who knows. The pundits have offered

Iraq war
Backlash against social conservatism
Decrease in fiscal conservatism among Republican candidates
Scandals

But we don't really know (although some polls certainly tried to isolate the factors). When I created my own forecasts of the election results (of course I created my own forecasts of election results) I essentially discounted intensity. Given that it, in my experience, it has always been an explanation for the same bias -- underprediction of Republican results -- I gave it little credibility. I was wrong. This year's elections will bring about a host of changes. One of them will be my increased confidence in measuring the intensity of opinion by polling groups.

So now would probably be an opportune time to roll-out another of my favorite bloggers, one who hasn't yet been added to my links. The Mystery Pollster is my favorite polling blogger. He's not the only one, but he does a good job explaining some of the technical stuff. In the run-up to the elections I was reading him daily. Among the stuff he does well, I would include consolidating lots of polls, defining industry terms, focusing on important issues. He does occasionally wander off into his own hobbies (1,000 posts on "push-polls") but he's good at what he does, so I bear with him.

26,500 steps today. Standard error = 2.5%

10/16-17/2006 - 8x8

2006-11-12T17:25:00.000-08:00

Last weekend, my parents bought a set of checkers for my eldest. The reason is that a friend convinced me that learning checkers was the first step in learning to play chess.

Why chess? I don't know. I guess "people like me" learn to play chess. I did indeed. I never got any good at it, at least partially for lack of effort. But I played quite a bit, progressing to second board on my high school team and playing countless friendlies in college.

So there are chess sets about and my son has become interested in them. Grandpa taught him checkers last Sunday and we've played just about every day since.

Tonight, I was feeding the toddler when the eldest brought my chess set out.

"Let's play this."

Now he hasn't really learned to play checkers. If you give him hints he can take them, but he doesn't strategize, or even appreciate strategy. But he wanted to play chess and I let him. Tonight, we played a game I recall from my youth. I give him a king and two rooks and I take a king. The goal is for him to hunt me down.

Not much success, but he loved it. He has already requested that we play this instead of his usual TV show (over breakfast).

I'm beaming inside. I'm not entirely sure why.

32,300 gambits today. Cheers,

P.S. Happy birthday M.O.M.

10/13-15/2006 - Albert Lea, MN

2006-11-11T16:39:00.000-08:00

I traveled to Albert Lea.
While walking towards Arctic Sea.
While ova' the Minnesota I did roam.

Hiking through town
I'd rather lie down.
I feel so break up.
I wanna go home.

So what's doing in Albert Lea? Well the city has a website with a rather brief history:

From a modest beginning, Albert Lea grew into a flourishing village.

Being the highlight. But the city has persevered for 150 years. So while I am here, I will enjoy the 41 parks, ice rink and possibly even the 12 inches of snow projected to fall on November 11th.

51,000 unremarkable steps over these 3 days. Cheers,

10/11-12/2006 - D-FENSE

2006-11-09T23:59:00.000-08:00

Throughout the excitement of elections (and a few sleepless) nights, I have barely had a chance to blog. At some point, I have a post-election blog, but not today.

The bigger news around the Fellow residence is that I took the eldest to see the Celtics play last night. This may seem an odd place to take a 4.75 year old who sometimes gets overwhelmed at birthday parties, but we have done it once before and it worked surprisingly well. The other 10,000 attendees in the stands didn't interact with him, so he was able to think of the two of us as being in our own world. He mostly sat on my lap and cuddled. We read some stories and occasionally talked about basketball. Towards the end of the game, when the PA system kindly requested everyone to scream, he buried his face in my chest, hands on ears, but was otherwise unpreturbed.

This year was different. It started off worse but got much better. Before the game, they turned off the lights to introduce the players. My son immediately demanded that we leave. So we waited by the concession stand (where we bought sliced fruit) until the game had begun. He wasn't sure that he was ready to go back into the stadium, but I eventually convinced to have his dinner in our seats, after which we could leave if he wanted.

He didn't want. He kept his eyes fixed on the game and even asked me questions about it. He never climbed into my lap and was never interested in the books we brought with us. But here's what made me realized that times had changed: In the 4th quarter (which was very exciting) he started getting into "being a fan." When the crowds cheered "DE-FENSE," my boy was right there with them. I had to explain what defense was, but that seemed immaterial, in retrospect. During timeouts, he danced to the music. When the Celtics scored he cheered with the crowds.

The Bobcats tied things up at the end of the 4th, so we stayed for over time, which ended in a dramatic, buzzer-beating basket by the Celtics. For the record, my son has gone to two games and the Celtics have won both of them. We're available for attendence whenever they like.

30,500 steps over these two days. GO TEAM!

10/9-10/2006

2006-11-03T10:30:00.000-08:00

For a certain part of my job, I work with the office nurse. I have to say -- her out of office message is unique:

Hi, this is Judy. I'll be out of the office until November 8th. If you need immediate assistance, please dial 911.

25,600 emergent steps today. Cheers,

P.S. -- J.G. is about halfway across Wyoming. Where in the world is M.O.M.?

10/7-8/2006 - History according to Bob

2006-10-31T21:12:00.000-08:00

So here's the next installment of "stuff I like that you might, too." Today, my first podcast goes up: History according to Bob.

Bob has been a high school and college teacher and has those qualities that I liked best in my college professors. He is opinionated, does his own work and speaks with a care-free ease that suggests he lives and breathes history. He talks about whatever he wants and seems to have encyclopedic knowledge on just about everything.

This is one of only two podcasts that I actually listen to more-or-less daily (the other being a basketball podcast). In addition to having the qualities above, I also like the length, typically 8-12 minutes. For my 22 minute commute, it allows a full show + 1 other, just what I want.

Now that I have listened to quite a few of these, I am getting a sense for a downside of Bob. Although he talks about whatever he wants, a lot of what he wants to talk about is military history -- very much not my thing. One of the reasons I have stuck with him (there are other history podcasts) is that he manages to breath life into even this particular subject.

And if 50%+ of his material is military, I can say two more things for him. First, his military material is quite diverse. I have listened to lectures spanning, the Hun, Macedonia, The French-Indian war and WWI, to name but a few.

Second, the rest of his stuff lives up to the "whatever he wants" description. A small subset of his topics include ancient religions, oddities of royalty and a series on U.S. presidential elections (now that's what I'm talkin' about...)

Bob is generally the first podcast I listen to every morning and he's always a great start to the day.

26,000 historic steps over these 2 days. Cheers,

10/5-6/2006 - Like father, like son

2006-10-31T14:42:00.000-08:00

With great delight, we are in the process of stepping up the level of books we read to our eldest. While we used to be firmly in the "picture-book" phase (and he still enjoys a good picture book every now and now and now and now and again) we are increasingly reading him books where the plot is as crucial as the pictures. With no pictures to look at, the boy has nothing else to do but look over my shoulder at the words.

Last night I was reading to him from "Mr. Popper's Penguins" when he stopped the narrative.

"Daddy? Why are those numbers there?"

"It's an address, buddy. You know, like our address."

People always asked me when I knew that I wanted to be an actuary. In truth, the answer is sometime after I got my first job. But I was probably destined to be one. When I was a kid, I used to sit on my mother's lap while she read stories.

"What's that?!"

"The number 5, JG. We're on page 5."

27,700 numerical steps today. Cheers,

10/2-4/2006 - Austin, MN

2006-10-31T03:00:00.000-08:00

So today I arrive at Austin, Minnesota, with the lovely url of:

http://www.spamtownusa.com/

And why does it merit this lovely url? Because spam, yes, spam, is associated with the town. For example, check out the Museum of Spam. "Just as every Elvis fan longs to visit Graceland, SPAM fans worldwide now have their own pilgrimage to make," as it's website proudly proclaims.

And who wouldn't want to go visit the 5-foot replica of a spam-burger, or see nearly 5,000 cans of spam from all over the world? At the museum, I learned that

spam (originally spiced ham) was invented in 1937.
In World War II it was used to feed soldiers, at least in Russia.
The 1,000,000,000th can was produced in 1959
In 1968, the word "spam" was said for the 1,000,000,000th time
In 1970, the word "spam" was said for the 1,000,000,000,000th time

Spam. It isn't just advertisers anymore.

36,000 steps over these 3 days. Cheers,

Cheers, cheers, cheers, cheers, cheers, (cheerity cheers, wonderful cheers)

9/30-10/1/2006 - Evolution and Chess (redux)

2006-10-29T18:03:00.000-08:00

One of my loyal readers (okay, my mom) pointed out that I read many blogs and listen to many podcasts, but almost none of them appear in my links. I have often enjoyed following links from blogs, so I'm a little embarassed not to have set this up properly on my blog. So, I will endeavor to update my links, introducing (or reintroducing) each as it goes up.

I'll start with the blog that was particularly of note: Chevolution. This blog is written by a friend of mine from high school with whom I have, unfortunately, lost touch. I found it one day when I was searching for a blog about the debate between Evolution and ID. It was the top hit.

Jason (who identifies himself on his blog) is a math professor at James Madison University (not one of my favorite presidents, but in the top 50%) and his blog is mostly about the debate. When he grows weary with it, his thoughts turn to math, chess, string theory or whatever.

He has a delightful (often scathing) style of writing and it's a good read. Warning: if you are a proponent of ID, or just don't like to see the movement bashed, this is not the link for you.

31,300 evolving steps over these 2 days. Ook.

9/27-29/2006 - Judge, MN

2006-10-29T17:32:00.000-08:00

Here come da Judge!
Here come da Judge!
Here come da Judge!
Here come da Judge!

Well, Mapquest has done it to me once again. I thought that I was walking from Rochester, Minnesota to Judge, Minnesota. But when I look more closely at the map it provides (see second Judge above) I find that I have walked to the corner of 85th and 2nd in Rochester, about a quarter of a mile from Rochester International Airport (be sure to check out "The Wright Stuff" when you pass by).

This is not the first time I have identified a city in Mapquest and walked there only to find that the World Wide Web had no idea what I was talking about. A weird curiosity of mapquest. As a good rule of thumb, I recommend that you not walk to random cities on the advice of mapquest.

Incidentally, you can only imagine how easy it is to identify a lack of city by googling "Judge + Minnesota."

45,900 steps over these 3 days. Sock it to ME!

9/25-26/2006 - Baby no more!

2006-10-19T09:36:00.000-07:00

It is with nostalgic tears in my eyes that I take this occasion, more-or-less 1 year from his birth, to announce that our youngest has graduated from baby status. Henceforth, on this blog, and possibly on related blogs, he shall be known as The Toddler.

Being the quantitative fellow that I am, I am always looking for metrics to track my sons' development. With walking, I naturally counted "steps taken at once." At first, he would occasionally take a step to go from where he was to mummy's skirt. As he gained a little confidence, he would take 2 or 3 steps at a time. He really turned the corner (figuratively, not literally) 2 weeks ago at Grandma and Grandpa's place. While playing in the backyard I watched him take as many as 8 steps several times over the course of a 1-2 hour play session. The real difference here was that he could catch himself before falling and get back to neutral, so he could take another step or two.

Back in Boston, he's getting to the point where he'd rather walk than crawl. Yesterday, I watched him toddle his way across the living room and I realized that we were in a new world.

25 steps today! Hurrah!

15,400 toddling steps over these 2 days. Cheers,

9/22-24/2006 - Rochester, MN

2006-10-18T18:58:00.000-07:00

If you expected to find Rochester in some other state, you're not alone. Rochester, MN was settled by, among others, a man named George Head, who felt that it reminded him of his home city, Rochester, NY.

Unlike some of the cities through which I have recently traveled, Rochester is substantial, driven by many of its larger institutions. The one that most caught my interest was the Mayo Clinic. I must admit that I have always associated the clinic with Arizona, and they do indeed have several facilities there, but they also have thousands of employees in Rochester.

For those that don't know it, the Mayo Clinic is a medical facility boasting almost 45,000 employees. They treat tens of thousands of patients every year, but what they are known for is their research.

I have run into the Clinic both professionally and personally. Among their many specialties, they do seem to focus on those diagnoses that are more uncertain to treat, like allergies and muscular skeletal disorders. In both of these cases, doctors are hampered by ambiguous tools and disagreements as to proper treatment.

As a patient, it can be very frustrating to ask questions to which all the answers are "I don't know." But it was not too long ago that many more diagnoses were characterized by such discussions, and research has brought more answers than most of us are prepared for. I cannot express my gratitude enough, that the Mayo Clinic is out there fighting the good fight.

43,000 healthy steps over these 3 days. Cheers,

9/20-21/2006 - Inaugurating the new season

2006-10-16T10:08:00.000-07:00

To everything, there is a season.

Thank goodness this one is over.

On to more walking!

19,900 post-celebratory steps today. Cheers,

9/18-19/2006 - Presidents!!

2006-10-13T10:01:00.000-07:00

Well, the results are in: Of those who responded, 100% selected FDR as favorite president, but were evenly split between Reagan and Nixon as the second-least-favorite.

For a little extra mirth, please read the comments on the previous post...

I think that everyone should have a favorite and least-favorite presidents (and probably second-least-favorite, all things considering). It helps one sort out the traits one admires, it helps focus future elections, and hey, it's fun. I've mentioned before that my favorite president was the first one. Readers of my blog are probably aware that my least-favorite is the current one. What may surprise my readers is that my second-favorite president is Adams, my third favorite is Jefferson... just kidding.

It's hard to narrow Washington's contributions to the country to a handful of bullet points, but some of what effect my opinion were his wisdom (and moral fortitude) in stopping after two terms, his unclouded view of foreign relations, and his view of the dangers of partisanship. His greatness is hidden beneath the surface, but manages to sneak through in so many small ways across his career, from his participation in the Continental Congress to his well executed retreats.

Bush? I can respect that his goals are not always my goals; a President has a lot to think about and my priorities can't always come first. What bothers me most about the past 6 years is the aura of untruthfulness that pervades them. It's not that I can point to any impeachable offenses, but from "sexed up" evidence for WMD, to the no-bid contracts, from the willful ignoring of scientific findings, to the secret programs (and calls for freedom from oversight) and -- worst of all -- the muzzling of actuarial opinion, I really find it hard to ever trust motivations. I can only hope that every future administration will inspire more trust than this one has.

Now, in all fairness, I'm sure that much of placing Bush at the bottom has to do with having lived through his administration. Had I suffered through Pierce or Harding, might I have elevated Bush to the lofty "least favorite?" Probably not. But Pierce wins my second-least favorite by a nose. I doubt that anyone could have held the union together in 1850s, but Pierce seems to have been singularly the wrong guy for the position. Always described as "a decent enough fellow" and was probably fine as a senator, but he just wasn't a president. Between the "Kansas-Nebraska act" and the "Ostend Manifesto" managed to alienate just about everyone in the country, but not in any way that helped them work out their differences. Pierce eventually departed from public life on his way back to alcoholism.

15,200 nattering steps today. Cheers,

(P.S. Where's 9/17? That was the marathon which has already been pretty well blogged... That also will help explain the really low footage over the next couple of days.)

9/15-16/2006 - Where in the world is J. G. Fellow?

2006-10-11T13:40:00.000-07:00

Avid readers of my blog are probably aware that I am way behind in my posting of cities (moreso than the near 1-month lag in blog dates suggests). As a result, said avid readers may be curious as to where I "really" am. I am happy to report that I have arrived at Mount Rushmore and am knocking at the gates of Wyoming. A quick glance at the map on my wall shows me that I have traversed more than half of the continental U.S. in the past 11 months. I've walked more than 4.5M steps, more than 2,300 miles, but I have plenty of work ahead of me.

I have more than three million more steps to take here in the U.S. before I cross back into Canada (British Columbia). Once there I get 1.2 million steps good behavior before I find myself in a veritable zone of non-humanity. Another 2.6 million steps will take me to the first of my national wildlife preserves (Kluane). And then I will get to indulge in 2 million steps of reserved wildlife before turning myself in at Anchorage.

But enough about the future. Whilst I dawdle beneath the chiseled features of men whom I admire, I get to consider one of my favorite subjects -- Presidents. I'll write more about this once I actually get to the point where I am posting South Dakota, but for the mean time, let me ask you, dear readers:

Who was your favorite President?
Who was your second least favorite President (after Bush or Clinton, depending on the color of your state...)
What drew you towards or away?

24,000 contemplative steps over these 2 days. Cheers,

9/13-14/2006 - So long, old friend

2006-10-10T08:38:00.000-07:00

With a heavy heart, we cancelled our subscription to TiVo today. We were among the first customers and TiVo has been very good to us. I actually had to talk the Wife into it. At the time, TiVo was advertised as a tool to allow you to pause the game so you could check on the crying baby. Wife rolled her eyes and said "look, it's your toy, if you want to try it, go ahead." What we didn't really understand was the wonder of recording shows automatically and saving them for later. Wife, who has always had a chaotic schedule, suddenly had the ability to watch several shows she had never watched before. When, 2 years later, they increased our monthly service fee by a dollar or two, she ordered

"Pay the man!"

Flash forward another 5-6 years and we are cancelling. We have recently decided not to continue to have TV service in our house, and TiVo serves little purpose in such case. In this day and age of diminishing customer service, I didn't expect much from the call. I was pleasantly surprised. My service representative was shocked at our cancellation:

"You've been with us forever! What makes you want to cancel now?"

I explained and she was understanding. She tried to offer me 2 free months, but realized how little that did me and quickly took care of business.

If we ever return to the world of television watchers, TiVo won't be too far behind, but for now, it was what we had to do.

30,000 asynchronous steps today.

9/10-12/2006 - Saint Charles, MN

2006-10-04T17:59:00.000-07:00

And now for my first stop in Minnesota -- Saint Charles. This sleepy city of 3,300 boasts a few special events, such as the Winona County State Fair and Gladiolis Day. Further, if you manage to build hotels here, in Virginia and "States," you might net $750.

38,900 steps (I want to be the boot!) over these 3 days. Cheers,

9/8-9/2006 - Playing hard

2006-09-30T20:08:00.000-07:00

With each of my kids, I felt an inexplicable responsibility to help them learn to play. As if my children may have gone out in life to be the only ones with no understanding of what "fun" is. I haven't been as diligent with the baby, but I have distinct memories of showing my eldest how one could make plastic animals talk to one another, in English or whatever animal tongue they chose.

Despite my fears, my eldest eventually learned to have fun. He has recently shown great aptitude for it, spending as much as 40 minutes making plastic animals talk to one another. The baby also shows signs of developing this critical skill.

I don't see the baby so much (especially during the week) so it all starts with the nightly bath. For the most part, the bath has been a period of exploration, during which the baby finds things he shouldn't and experiments with what happens when they get wet. On occasion when the boys bathe together, the Eldest has taken great delight in sticking foam bath toys to the baby. The first inkling of "fun" I saw in the baby was the moment he stuck a foam toy to himself and looked up at me with that drooly grin.

Of course, this was as much imitation as it was having fun. But this week, he has begun to have unambiguous fun in the bath. Somehow he discovered that the big splashes were [a] emanating from him and [b] fun. All of a sudden, we were all soaked as the baby repeatedly struck the water, shrieking with delight.

I am overjoyed to watch my boys having fun. I can really think of no greater fatherhood experience to date. I look forward to what lies in store.

34,500 enjoyable steps today. Cheers,

9/5-7/2006 - Viroqua, WI

2006-09-30T19:35:00.000-07:00

Today, I talk about Viroqua, a mere 20 hour car-ride from my city of residence. Like many of you, I was curious as to where the name came from. A trip to the city's charming website revealed as little as may ever be revealed: There are quite a few legends suggesting possibilities, but many of them contain the daughter of a local native American chief (named Viroqua, of course).

Of additional note is the library, in this sleepy city of 4,500 or so. The library is one of the 2,500 or so libraries that Andrew Carnegie donated around the world. Although many may remember Carnegie more for the Homestead Strike or his industrial prowess, his lasting impression on the U.S. is definitely one of philanthropy.

In addition to Carnegie Hall, Carnegie Mellon University and Diplodocus Carnegiei (really) he saw it fit to help libraries spring up around the country. A strong sense of what book learning had done for him, combined with an urge to use his wealth to enrich society, led him to his little "library problem," by which the people of Viroqua, among others, still benefit.

40,000 beneficent steps over these 3 days. Cheers,

9/4/2006 - I'm back...

2006-09-27T10:15:00.000-07:00

Forgive me readers, for I have sinned. It's been about 9 days since my last post. Or did I use that joke last time?

So much to blog about, so little time. First a little politics and then some humor.

In this day and age of spin, it seems like you can count on certain media outlets to promote their candidate through thick and thin. I remember seeing conservative media that proclaimed Bush to have won every debate he been in. Well, sure. If you get to define "winning" on the fly, there you go. The same conservative media was at a loss following the first gubernatorial debate in Massachusetts this week. At the end, the (conservative) host from WTKK agreed with the (conservative) host from Fox news that the (liberal) Democrat had won.

How could this possibly happen? As long as she has been in the public eye, the Republican candidate (who is currently serving as Lieutenant Governor) has exuded incompetency. She is famous for quoting Marie Antoinette in support of her political views. She allows her opponents to define her positions. She was caught promoting legislation that benefited her husband. I am sure that she has many good attributes which helped get her to where she is today, but none of these were on display during the debate.

But that isn't wholly what did her in. The Massachusetts debates has two facets with which I'm not so familiar. First, the debate was 4-way, between the Dems and the Reps, but also including an independent who has a legitimate shot at second place, and another independent who has no legitimate shot of anything. The second peculiarity was that the moderator showed no willingness to prevent the candidates from talking over one another. So the Democratic candidate would answer a question with a serviceable sound byte and then the focus would move on. By contrast, the Republican candidate would give a bizarre answer than then struggle to clarify while the two independents would launch into unfathomable filibusters of dubious germanity.

It's nice to know that there are still some performances that have to be acknowledged as "losing."

And now for some humor. A friend was visiting the other day and offered to pour water for my eldest. She reached over the entire length of the table and poured, some into the glass, but mostly onto my eldest's hand. Then she turned to me.

"Would you like some water in your glass?"

"Sure. Or, you know, wherever."

16,000 debatable steps today. Cheers,

9/3/2006 - And yet, J.G. moves

2006-09-18T18:55:00.000-07:00

Well, 24 hours on and I'm still alive. Actually, in certain ways I'm already on the mend. What hurt the most last night (feet, leg muscles) but a few oddities remain. My hip muscles (or whatever) are the most sore, causing me to actually limp as I hobble around. I didn't feel them at all yesterday, possibly because they were drowned out by the other pains.

My best guess is that I actually stretched the other muscles that were sore, causing them to heal faster. I don't even know how to stretch the hips.

Yesterday was an awesome experience. Hopefully I will forget the discomfort of today, enabling me to sign up for next year's walk. I made a number of mistakes (training too little, carrying too much) that I look forward to correcting.

And maybe I'll even recruit some folks to walk with me...

47,300 steps today (and that was just my training day -- 62,300 steps for the walk itself!).

CHEERS!

Mile 26.2

2006-09-17T12:00:00.000-07:00

That's the walk and I am out of here.

60,800 steps so far today.

Cheers!

Mile 20

2006-09-17T09:24:00.000-07:00

I'm bushed.

45,000 steps and counting.

Cheers,

Mile 17

2006-09-17T08:27:00.000-07:00

38,500 steps!

Starting to feel it in my feet but the Eldest is hoping to walk with me at mile 23, so something to walk for!

Cheers,

On the road again

2006-09-17T07:30:00.000-07:00

31,800 steps and we're off!

Cheers,

Mile 14!

2006-09-17T06:52:00.000-07:00

So the "halfway" mark turned out to be at mile 14, so I am currently stretching at Wellesley High school, waiting to hook up with the rest of my team of walkers.

I feel good and it's great to be surrounded by all of this enthusiasm. Go Jimmy Fund!

30,000 steps so far.

Cheers,

Mile 9

2006-09-17T05:16:00.000-07:00

1/3 of the way there! It's going to be a scorcher -- 7 to 10 degrees higher then originally predicted. Happily the Wife thought to freeze my sports drinks.

Blessed be the wife.

Cheers,

Mile 6

2006-09-17T04:31:00.000-07:00

13,300 steps, 105 minutes.

My Mp3 player ran out of juice back at mile 4. I'd switch to the phone, but I have to make sure I can check in with the wife round about mile 23...

Mile 3

2006-09-17T03:44:00.000-07:00

Coming up on 7300 steps. For those without sliderules, that's less then 2000 steps per mile. Awesome.

Sunrise was beautiful.

Cheers,

Mile 0

2006-09-17T02:51:00.000-07:00

5:45, and I'm off.

1100 steps just getting here.

Cheers,

9/2/2006 - Final Jimmy Fund Prep and a little Astronomy

2006-09-16T20:38:00.000-07:00

Well, this is it. In about 6 hours, I hope to be following the path of the Boston Marathon. Wish me luck.

In case I didn't think that the International Astronomical Union was out to get me, they went and changed the name of Xena. To be honest, I'm not really sure why I liked the name Xena. I never watched the show. I'm a fan of the whole mythology-name convention. Xena (and its moon Gabrielle) just amused me.

Well, now Xena is Eris. Eris is the Greek Goddess of Trouble and Strife. The name alludes to the varying factions of astronomers arguing over Eris' status (planet vs. dwarf) and is not a commentary George Bush (as others have suggested).

However, the IAU threw me a bone. The moon formerly known as "Gabrielle" shall hence forth be known as Dynomia, which Greek for Lawlessness, or Lucy Lawless, for short.

17,100 anarchic steps today. Fight!

9/1/2006 - A yardstick - Jimmy Fund Prep

2006-09-13T09:37:00.000-07:00

One of the problems I have encountered during my training is that I never really know the distance of my walks. I just walk around the city, counting my steps (well, my pedometer does the counting). I have generally assumed about 2100 steps to the mile, but when I have tried to measure that, I often get a larger number. While walking around, that is pretty insignificant. When doing a marathon, the difference is between 55,000 steps and 60,000.

Well, this past Sunday I had one of my better opportunities to measure the distance of my steps. I was with the Eldest at a picnic and we came across a race track. The Eldest dearly wanted to run around (and be lifted over the hurdles) so off we went. I did a bit of jogging to keep up with him, but a fair amount of walking and a little back tracking. It took me a little over 500 steps to do a quarter of a mile.

-Whew-

Maybe it will only take me 55,000 steps on Sunday. That would still be 7.5 hours at a minimum and probably longer since I will be walking as part of a team...

14,000 relieved steps today. Cheers,

8/31/2006 - All about the mustard

2006-09-11T21:31:00.000-07:00

Since I have been having some difficulty tracking down some of my rest stops here in Wisconsin, I decided to take a look at some of the sites I have been missing. For example, had I managed to make my way to Mount Horeb, I would have been treated to an exposition on mustard.

At the Mustard Museum here I could have been introduced to over 2,300 varieties of the stuff. Happily they have a pretty good website (no tastes are downloadable yet) so I was able to learn a little something about the history of the condiment.

For example: Mustard seeds were found in ancient Egyptian tombs. Nobody knows for sure how long this has been a condiment used to spruce up meals. The earliest reference to mustard in the Dijon area of France was in the 14th century, but it is believed that the monks there were developing the stuff considerably earlier.

We Americans didn't catch the mustard wave until the early 20th century but in 2006, we harvested more than 40,000 acres of mustard seed.

I briefly flirted with mustard after one of my brothers-in-law showed me how good it was with salami. For a while I was eating it at work, with my pretzels. But then I got some on a shirt.

That was the end of that.

16,000 condimential steps today. Cheers,

8/29-30/2006 - Bosstown, WI

2006-09-11T21:13:00.000-07:00

The Mighty, Mighty Bosstown!

Bosstown is an unincorporated splotch of land in Richland County (hmmm, maybe I was in Richland county afterall) and has little else to say for itself in the first few pages of a google search. It may be near a dairy college in Wisconsin. But maybe not.

Contrary to popular belief, it is not the fiefdom of Bruce Springstein. Or Dicky Barrett.

27,100 terse steps today. Cheers,

8/28/2006 - Double disappointments

2006-09-09T21:23:00.000-07:00

Some time ago, I was talking to my eldest about the Red Sox and he interrupted me:

"Daddy, I root for the White Sox."

Was he sure?

"You root for the Red Sox, but I root for the White Sox."

Eventually, I learned to accept this. I began letting him know when his team won and mentioning the players' names to him. As the Red Sox season went into a downward spiral, it occurred to me that I could take some pleasure in the post-season if my son's team made it in. Alas, the exciting Minnesota Twins look poised to upend the Defending World Champions so me and my son shall both be disappointed.

Although I shan't tell him.

18,500 heavy-hearted steps today.

8/26-7/2006 - Lone Rock, WI

2006-09-09T21:07:00.000-07:00

From one mysterious name to the next, tonight I stroll into Lone Rock, WI. Actually, there are two Lone Rocks in Wisconsin (casting an unflattering light on the use of the word "lone"). One is in Richland County and the other is about 60 miles north, in Juneau County (whetting my appetite). I am passing through Juneau, of course.

Alas, all of the information I can find on line, even on Wikipedia, seems to be about Richland. And its 929 residents. I can only imagine how many residents live in my Lone Rock.

So I decided to look up real estate prices in Lone Rock (either). The most expensive house I could find for sale turned out to be 32 commercial lots along a highway ($800k). For $200k, I could get a 4 bedroom, 2000 square foot house sitting on an acre of land.

Now why did I do that to myself?

29,500 lonely steppes over these two days. Cheers,

8/25/2006 - Inconceivable!

2006-09-07T14:42:00.000-07:00

The media is reporting something that seemed inconceivable only 12 months ago. Based on recent polls, it seems likely that the Democratic Party will picks up significant seats in the House, possibly even enough to flip control. In the Senate, gains are also likely, but nobody is forecasting a flip.

To take a step back, flipping the House in 2006 is inconceivable enough that I ignore this report as much as one that forecasted that Democrats would win every seat in the House. I generally regard the media, at least those elements that are openly sympathetic to the Democratic party (e.g. NYT) as being somewhat biased on these matters. That being said, the polls have been surprising enough to merit the reporting, and that is significant.

One of the oddities of this report is that gerrymandered house is seen as being more vulnerable than the ungerrymandered senate. I can think of at least two likely explanations. The "Democratic" explanation is that House elections are referendums on National Policy while Senate elections are more about Senators. I know my Senators and their characters quite well (and not just because one of them ran for President). I know who my Representative is, but can't really tell you much about his policy. Still, gerrymandering means that Representatives choose their voters, so you would think that Republican Representatives would tend to live in districts full of people who support National Policy right now.

The Republican take on these numbers is that they are wishful thinking. One can argue that pollsters don't do a good job identifying "likely voters," or that voter opinions rarely stay stable from here to November. And they may well be right. The recent history of pollsters (dating back to Clinton v. Dole) shows that polls often overstate Democratic strength. I think that a big part of this is that the party resonates well with younger voters, whereas voting doesn't.

Still, as an admitted Bush opposer, I find the reports heartening and can only hope that the Democratic party will find something other than the high price of gasoline on which to campaign...

14,500 capitol steps today. Cheers,

8/24/2006 - Of photons and Plutons

2006-09-06T13:12:00.000-07:00

Evolution isn't the only scientific theory out there. And if it is ever successfully refuted (in the courts of science, not popular opinion) it won't have been the first theory to fall from grace. Nowadays, scientific theories don't generally crash and burn, but that wasn't always so. One of my favorite examples of a theory that completely died was the Greek "4 elements theory," which hypothesized that everything they could see was constructed of 4 elements and that like attracted like (e.g. drop a stone and it will be attracted to the Earth, which is composed of the same element, more or less).

As my astrophysics professor said in class, this was a legitimate Scientific Theory. It explained past observations and made testable hypotheses.

Which generally proved false.

Hence crashing and burning.

Flash forward and Theories generally get better treatment. Instead of being discarded, they are given a handshake for their notable service to mankind and are allowed to retire to the green pastures of textbooks. For example, when observational evidence demonstrated that Einstein's theories could explain phenomena that Newtonian Physics could not, the New York Times devoted its entire front page to trumpeting the news. But every high school Junior studies Newton all the same. After all, Newton can explain about 99.9% of what a typical High School Student can see (physics-wise).

In my totally uneducated opinion, the difference between the Greeks' 4-elements and Newtonian Physics was the incredible improvement in observations. Newton had far more to explain and therefore his Theory came closer to what any successor was going to have to produce. The Greeks had far less to explain, so wildly different theories could explain the same observations. Evolution has a lot of observations to, by now. So whatever theory eventually replaces it will look a lot like it.

Of course, there are exceptions. For quite some time, our theory of light always involved this concept of the "photon," a little particle that carried light with it. This was a useful model.

You could imagine the sun pumping tons of these little balls of light.
You could imagine them bouncing off of trees.
You could imagine how the process of bouncing off of trees and into your eyes allowed you to see trees.

It explained why you couldn't see the trees
when a blimp passed in front of them,
or when the sun set,
or when you closed your eyes.

Then came the 2 slit experiment and suddenly light wasn't just another particle. It was a wave. After some discussion, we came to realize that light exhibits qualities of particles and waves. It must have been like someone announced that dogs had roots and photosynthesized.

(I am resisting the urge to mention that their bark was still worse than their bite. Whew! That was close.)

Pluto is not earth shattering on that scale. As James Lilek points out (http://www.newhousenews.com/archive/lileks083006.html) Pluto is still Pluto, even as it was before we discovered it. This isn't at all like coming to grips with phloem filled dogs. It's more like deciding that it makes more sense to refer to dogs as aardvarks. Whatever you want to call them, they're still what they were.

So why am I having so much trouble with this?

8,500 soul searching steps today. Cheers,

8/22-23/2006 - Black Earth, WI

2006-09-06T10:34:00.000-07:00

Able I was, 'ere I saw Black Earth, WI. I'll bet you'd like to know how this city got its name. I sure would. Unfortunately, I can't find that information on line. Not even in Wikipedia.

What I can determine is that Black Earth has about 2,200 people in it (700 in the smaller Black Earth Village). Many of them are married. Some of them wish you to read the notes from the last town meeting.

Well, dear readers, I am going to have to punt. Here is what I did find on line about "Black Earth:"

Formed in 1999 and based in The Midwest, Black Earth set out on a challenge: bring back the attitude of 70's and 80's hard rock/metal and add the aggression and grist of today’s nu metal – without sounding dated."Look at the differences in the bands that the tributes are for," says guitarist Travis Crider. "Pantera sounds nothing like Queensryche. Suicidal Tendencies sounds nothing like Dio, and so on. I think that being able to cover this vast spectrum of bands, and do it well, shows how diverse we can be with our original music."
What they produce is an unrelenting force of hard rocking sound that screams allegiance to the metal heroes of days gone by with the kind of crunch that is unmistakably contemporary. Their four-song demo provides a handful of examples. In each, the rhythms are the driving pulse ("Down") that carry an emotive and often demanding vocal intensity ("Together We Stay").
Along with Crider, Black Earth is and Dale Christie (vocals), Duane Conn (bass), Brian Tonne (drums) and Craig Savage (guitar). The band's versatility and diverse influences are clearly intertwined with each other. All of Black Earth's songs come from the heart. The lyrics usually come from the darker side of life experiences -- what they've felt at a certain time: loss, gain, decline of the western civilization -- you name it. The band doesn't sit down with the intention of writing a song that sounds one way or another. In the end, the songs are the feelings of five guys crafted into a single statement.That statement says metal didn’t start with the nu-metal band's of today – but with many bands before, through many other heydays. Black Earth keeps that in mind with every versatile step. "

Hey, it's not every town in Wisconsin that rates its own Heavy Metal band.

36,000 head-banging steps on these two days. Cheers,

8/21/2006 - "Putting the DUH in Canada"

2006-09-06T06:47:00.000-07:00

From the Scientific American podcast:

A professor in Canada applied for funding to study whether the U.S.'s Intelligent Design movement had had any impact on Canadians' beliefs about evolution. The request was denied on the grounds that the professor had given insufficient evidence for Evolution. Although he was not able to complete his research, the professor concluded that I.D. had had some impact.

As I've mentioned before, I'm slowly working my way through "Of People and Pandas," the dominant I.D. textbook out there today. I've also started listening to Dr. Zachary Moore's Evolution Podcast (Evolution 101) dedicated to laying out evolutionary concept in relatively simple language. The combination is jarring.

I am finding some positive things in "Of People and Pandas," and I'll try to say something less negative in a future post, but as Moore points out, the book engages in some deceptive language. I'm aware of some of it, like saying 'Evolution is a theory and Intelligent Design is a theory. These facts fit both theories, so we can't use these facts to determine which is right.' Some is less obvious, like saying 'micro-evolution happens because of a, b and c, but no mechanism can explain how macro-evolution would happen.'

The first statement is "true," but only if you use "theory" in a loose, ambiguous sense. In the scientific world, "theory" has a more tightly specified meaning, a model that explains all relevant observations and makes predictions. I.D. does not meet that criteria, so it's technically more correct to say that "Evolution is a theory and Intelligent Design isn't a theory."

The second statement is true, I guess. But it's even more sneaky than the first. The point here is that I.D. has created an ambiguous distinction between two kinds of evolutions (technically, within kind and from kind to kind, although the definition of kind is hard to pin down). Scientists don't make that distinction. The reason that I.D. does is that evolution within "kind" is easy to demonstrate in an experiment -- it just takes a few generations of fruit flies, which is pretty quick.

From what I can tell, it's much harder to demonstrate evolution from kind to kind (e.g. Monkey to Man), so this distinction allows I.D. to accept what is clearly true while continuing to argue against the more important point. My studies haven't led me far enough to defend the scientific view that the same mechanism which drives evolution within kind can drive evolution from kind to kind, so I'd better leave it at that. It's just that one can see how carefully I.D. is defining the argument. I am reminded of Bill Cosby's routine in which he imagines that George Washington wins the coin toss, and thus is able to specify that his troops will hide behind rocks while the British are required to remain in formation.

11,000 ornery steps today. Grump,

8/20/2006 - Rice and onions

2006-09-04T17:00:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I posted a recipe. Today I tried something that Savta fed us once -- rice and fried onions. Nothing special:

Rice: Make 3 cups, dropping salt and a tab of margarine in with the boiling water.

Onions: 1 small onion, cut rings in quarters and fry.

Mix.

It didn't work, but you could see that it might. For starters, the mixing didn't go well. I didn't leave enough room in the bowl to mix thoroughly (without spilling). Also, the onions weren't very mushy, and didn't really mix in. I can imagine somehow saucing up the onions or boozhing them (as Spring might say).

Also, I used canola oil and the taste was not where I wanted it. Maybe this is the ideal time for olive oil -- I have to think about that.

I'm taking suggestions.

19,000 experimental steps today. Cheers,

8/19/2006 - Testing my mettle (Jimmy Fund Prep)

2006-09-03T20:12:00.000-07:00

On some days, you can either blog or you can walk.

Today (9/3/2006, actually) was my "come-to-Moses" day. The stars were aligned perfectly for walking, so I was going to see just how likely a 26.2 mile hike was for me.

The good news. I put in a lot of footage without having to slow down. Over the course of 24 hours, I put up close to 48,000 steps (20.5-22.5 miles). Most of that was between 7:30AM and 4:30PM and most of that was either 7:30-11:00 or 3-4:30. In between 11 and 3 I met my family (and Silver) for lunch and light walking around Copley.

I'm guessing that the Jimmy Fund walk will be between 57,000 and 60,000 steps, so it's not a big leap from 48k to, say, 58k.

The bad news. Things went far more slowly than I had hoped. My plan is to start out from Hopkinton at 5:30am and meet up with my teammates (at mile 13) around 9am. It seems very unlikely that I can do 13 miles in 3.5 hours. Time for plan B.

The day was also a useful test of my MP3 plan. As you probably don't know, I usually use my cell phone as an MP3 player, but it can only handle about 3 hours of playing time. If I use it, I will lose the ability to call the wife and say "my feet hurt." We can't have that. So I dusted off my old Arcos MP3 player to see if it still worked.

The good news. It works! I was able to install the software on our new computer and move several podcasts to it. I was worried that it wouldn't handle big files so well, but one of the files was more than 50Mb, no problem. I also tried using my non-noise cancelling headphones. I often couldn't understand what I has listening to, but it was good enough. And no ear-pain, which is the goal.

The bad news. I now remember that my old MP3's rechargable battery was going south when I originally switched to the phone. Instead of the 6 hours it claims to provide, I get more like 2.5. Well, that's probably good enough. It will get me most of the way to my teammates, and I can always supplement from the phone.

13,000 so-so steps today. Cheers,

8/17-18/2006 - Madison, WI

2006-09-01T13:03:00.000-07:00

With due apologies to the great city of Madison, no mapquest link to show my route today as I am away from my usual bag of tricks. But I do have a more personal account of the city thanks to ace reporter Actu-Pella, who used to live in the area. A.P. recommends that I stop by the capital, one of the more beautiful capital buildings across the country. As always, Wikipedia is there for the assist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madison,_Wisconsin) this time including a photo of the aforementioned capital.

So what shall I do in Madison? Were I passing through this labor day weekend, I would doubtless be stopping in at the "Taste of Madison" festival, during which area restaurants set up booths to display their best foods around the capital square. In reality I tend to eat very little dairy or red meat (always watching that cholesterol) but my virtual counterpart just doesn't have self-restraint, so he'll probably nibble at this and that.

After brunch, lunch and a little linner, I'll wander over to Lake Mendota. Want to see what I'm seeing? Try the following webcam: www.soils.wisc.edu/asig/webcam.html

Finally, no visit to Madison is complete without a visit to the Babcock Dairy. What flavors of ice cream do they boast? How about

Peach Melba
Mudslide
Caramel Creek
Badger Blast
Blue Moon
Coffee Truffle

Badger flavored ice cream? I'll go with strawberry.

29,500 carnivorous steps today. Cheers,

8/16/2006 - Hooray for Harry Bingham

2006-08-31T13:40:00.000-07:00

It seems that Harry Bingham is getting a stamp. Who? I asked much the same question. Pater provides some answers:

The son of archaeologist of Indiana quality, Harry entered the US diplomatic service and found himself in France in 1939. Ambivalent about the upcoming war and uneasy to appear to be taking sides, President Roosevelt's Administration ordered its representatives in France not to grant visas to Jews.

Bingham refused to comply.

During his tenure of rebellion, he granted visas to such notables as Marc Chagall, Max Ernst and the family of Thomas Mann. He also sheltered Jews and forged a few identities for those in need. Washington, eventually losing patience, sent him to Argentina, where he took it upon himself to track the movement of Nazi war criminals.

He died penniless and his contribution to humanity might have been forgotten but for his son, who found some relevant letters among his belongings after he died. He has since been honored by the UN, the State of Israel and finally, the U.S.

I have an uncle who smuggled contraband to the (Jewish) freedom fighters during Israel's war of independence. I'm proud of what he did and I'm proud to be part of movement to honor Bingham's memory. They seem a kindred pair in my eyes and I hope their memories feel honored by each other.

14,000 memorial steps today. Cheers,

8/15/2006 - Logistics of the Jimmy Fund Walk

2006-08-31T12:43:00.000-07:00

I must confess that I can be quite fond of working through the logistics of projects. As I get ready for my 26.2 mile walk, I am enjoying digging into the most minute of the minutiae: To what podcasts will I listen? What will I drink? Shall I buy a new pair of socks? What kind of mapquest information shall I take with me?

In addition to deciding what to listen to as I walk (at least for the first 13 miles, I will be joined by Mr. Peacock and his sister-in-law at the halfway mark) I have to decide how. I usually listen to my podcasts on my phone, but if I do that, I will drain the battery, and I want to feel like I could make a quick call from the road if I had to. Additionally, I know that I can't wear my nice earphones for 3.5 hours. In fact, my ears get sore wearing them for even 60 minutes. They have nice sound-canceling qualities, which they achieve by fitting very tightly around my ears. My plan is to switch back and forth between them and much worse earplugs. I might have to give up and just walk in silence…

Special shout outs to all of you who have donated so far:

Walkin' Boots
Dr. Love
The Yooks
Actu-Pella
T-Bone
The Gnome and of course
Mom and Dad!

12,000 grateful steps today. Cheers,

8/13-14/2006 - Edgerton, WI

2006-08-29T18:27:00.000-07:00

And thus I sidle my way into Edgerton, WI. After the (virtual) wasteland that was Shopiere, it is a relief to be back in a city that values having a presence on line (as befits a city of 5,000+).

A quick look at its website shows that, had I managed to get here by June 14th (closer to when I actually did pass through it, by my records) I would have been treated to "Straight Up Bluegrass." Other concerts in the summer included The Banjo Barons, Tonya Rocker and Gear.

Additionally, Edgerton is the birthplace of Sterling North. Who? Wikipedia answers: a poet and author whom I haven't heard of, but whose works have been turned into a 52-episode Anime series in Japan. His most famous work seems to have been called "Rascal." Somehow, looking quickly at his historical society, I got the notion that he was somehow associated with the Little Rascals, but the more I dig into the material, the less likely that seems.

As long as I'm in Edgerton, I'll probably hike along the Rock River, possibly drift idly in a canoe. About this time I might notice that I am at an elevation of over 800 feet. As I approach Mount Rushmore, I only expect that number to go up!

34,000 wascally thteps over these two days. Cheers,

8/12/2006 - Here comes the Big One

2006-08-29T15:10:00.000-07:00

Well, I've decided to put my best foot forward about 29,000 times (and my worst foot forward almost that much). On Sunday, September 17th, I will be walking the route of the Boston Marathon, taking part in a fundraiser for the Jimmy Fund, which supports the Dana-Farber Center here in Boston.

I'm walking first and foremost for all of the kids I have met on 7-West in Children's hospital, especially the daughter of a friend of mine, who has recently battled her way to remission. I'm also walking for the Dana-Farber doctors who have helped my kid (who thank God never had cancer).

I'm also walking because, hey, I like walking.

Can I do it? I don't know. My longest walk in the past year was about 11-12 miles, which is a lot less than 26.2. In my defense, I will say that I stopped because I ran out of time, not because I ran out of juice. Later that day I went on a pair of 3-4 mile walks, both aimed at keeping the baby asleep. So in one day, I probably racked up close 18 miles in real walks plus another 1-2 walking about the apartment. Of course, I was in mid-season form then and I've been a little off my game the last few weeks. Here's hoping I can get back there.

In the meantime, the Wife is being very supportive. She'd rather I stuck with the 13 mile walk, but is willing to let me make my own mistakes here. She's also been excellent about helping me find (not insignificant) time to train. Thanks Wife, you're fantastic!

If you'd like, you can sponsor me as a walker at the Jimmy Fund Website. If you are one of the countless 2 or 3 individuals that reads this blog who doesn't know my real name, don't look for JG Fellow, he ain't walking. Feel free to make a donation directly to the Jimmy Fund "in honor of JG Fellow." It won't go contribute to my fundraising goals, but I'd be tickled regardless.

14,000 practicing steps today. Cheers,

8/11/2006 - The will of the people

2006-08-27T18:26:00.000-07:00

Mary's violet eyes make John stay up nights.

What does he do in the throes of his insomnia? We'll never know, because Pluto has been dropped from the ranks of the planets. The New York Times calls this "coming to [our] senses" but I lament the decision, and not just for the sake of classical music enthusiasts (actually, PB points out that such enthusiasts are unaffected).

From the NYT's perspective, Pluto was an accident, an outcast among the planets that should never have slipped in. The horror that lay behind Pluto was the dozens of equally valid mongrel planets, waiting to tear down the Berlin Wall lying roughly six billion kilometers from the sun (not to mention those rogue agents hiding between Mars and Jupiter).

From my perspective, we had a chance to live through the expansion of our little corner of the universe. A chance to better engage the hearts and minds of children around the world to be interested in not 8 but 12, dare I say 51 balls of rock, gas or ice revolving our beautiful Yellow Dwarf (see Dwarves can be beautiful!).

Well, I shall endeavor to keep Pluto alive in my own family, and maybe even spread the legends of Ceres, Charon and Xena! No, sir, I will not yield!

9,000 Plutonic steps today. Cheers,

8/9-10/2006 - Shopiere, WI

2006-08-22T19:36:00.000-07:00

And thus I find myself in Shopiere, Wisconsin. Being a mere 11 (oops - 16, how time flies) days behind in my posting at this point I can (more or less) take off my 7 league boots and return to my ambling pace. I think I'll still let myself get two days for posting cities, as I am so far behind (on my spreadsheet, I've hit South Dakota!).

I couldn't find a website for the city, so I tried some alternatives. Here's a picture of a bridge in Shopiere. Alas, nothing from Wikipedia. I'm guessing that Shopiere has under 4,000 residents and is not the birthplace of any earth-shattering political movements.

26,000 soft-spoken steps over these 2 days. Cheers,

8/8/2006 - R.I.P., Boston Red Sox

2006-08-22T13:13:00.000-07:00

I've been relatively good about sports entries recently, so I hope my faithful readers will forgive this brief interruption. I have in mind to make to write it with a broader interest in mind, but I am assured that my faithful readers will let me know whether I have succeeded...

As the Sox swirl into their final 40 games of the season, it seems appropriate to ask "what went wrong?" Until the all-start break, the Sox looked like the legitimate leaders in AL East and after they looked terrible. Part of what happened is that the Yankees retooled, got a few injured players back and surged. But I think that the demise can be blamed on 3 key factors, not all of which are clearly fixable.

Starting pitching

I think that, when historians look back on this year, they will eventually rate 4 long-term injuries to starting pitchers among the most important causes. David Wells and Mark Clement were the first down. Lenny DiNardo (or LeoNardo, as I like to think of him) followed soon after and Tim Wakefield succumbed in the middle of the season. None of these guys was the ace of the staff, or even number 2. And the rainstorm of injuries (and failed replacements) eventually led to the introduction of promising rookie -- John Lester). But in retrospect they were devestating. Wells returned to the mound as the season was about to be over and demonstrated how integral he would have been in keeping the Sox in the hunt.

How do you avoid pitching injuries? Well two of these guys were over 40 and I'm sure their cumulative injuries played a big role in how fast they could return. I am hoping that the Sox surging youth movement will play some role in mitigating the impact from injuries.

Tired/Inexperienced Relief Staff

I want to be clear here, I give Boston's coach, Terry Francona, full marks for playing the hand he was dealt creatively. He bulked up the bullpen and tried out tons of theories, none of which panned out. In the end, the injuries to the starting pitchers (and the disappointing season of Josh Beckett, for whom we are still waiting) meant that these guys had to pick up lots of innings. More than a typical relief staff. The Sox added a few pitchers to improve the staff, but middle relief is hit or miss -- these are often guys who either didn't make it as a starter or didn't make it as a closer.

The most frequent other option is youngsters on the way up, and Boston stocked their bullpen with plenty of those: Papelbon, Delcarmen, Hansen, Lopez, Snyder, Breslow and El Presidente, Van Buren. None of them (except Papelbon and maybe Breslowe) truly impressed, but all of them showed grit and promise. The problem with youth is that it is, at best, inconsistent.

How do you fix that? Experience. I solemnly hope that the Sox will hold onto many of these guys for next year. You wouldn't want the average age of your bullpen to be under 25, but you have to think that these guys have potential.

Getting runners home

This wasn't as much of a problem in the first half of the season, but in the second half, it seemed like bases loaded meant end of inning. Maybe it was the injuries to Varitek and Nixon (hey, how many ex-Presidents does this team have? Another post for another day). Maybe it was that the large bullpen meant small bench and tired staff. Either way, the hits stopped coming and at the most opportune times. In the last month, the team hit close to .290, but more like .210 with runners in scoring position.

If the starting pitching gets more innings next year, we can keep a smaller bullpen, more benchplayers and give these guys more days off.

Crazy?

"Your theory may be crazy, but it's not crazy enough to be true." -Neils Bohr

9,000 leaden steps today. Thbbbbbt.

8/7/2006 - Undecided in Wisconsin

2006-08-21T13:28:00.000-07:00

The Mystery Pollster has an excellent recent piece on undecided voters. Some recent data contradicts one of the cardinal rules of polling: Undecided voters overwhelmingly break for the challenger.

I heard about this notion for the first time during the Bush-Gore election in 2000. I was cudgeled with it in 2004, when every news reports seemed to begin with a reminder:

"October 23rd, 2004: As research has demonstrated, time and time again, undecided voters break overwhelmingly for the challenger. In other news, the Red Sox swept the Cardinals to win their first World Series in 86 years…"

Even as I originally listened to the networks claim how undecideds would break, I was dimly aware that this was an example of biased reporting -- most of these networks supported the challenger and they surely influenced decisions. The morality of this can be debated elsewhere.

Well, MP just revealed that this conventional wisdom was based on data as recent as 1982. An update of the analysis reveals something noteworthy: that percentage has been trending downwards. In 2002 and 2004, the split was closer to 50/50 (with the challenger still having a slight edge). What drove the change? Well that's far from clear and pollsters will be happy to grab any number of snowflakes out of the thin air (from post 9/11 theories to improved sampling methods). But my question is this?

If the "fact" that undecideds break for the challengers is now entrenched in the fourth estate, I imagine that we will hear much of this in the upcoming mid-term elections. If the media still relies on professional polling organizations to provide the bulk of the analysis, you may start hearing a new tune in the near future.

12,100 late-breaking steps today. Cheers,

8/4-6/2006 - Machesney Park, IL

2006-08-20T20:03:00.000-07:00

Time for my final stop in the great state of Illinois: Machesney Park. Machesney, founded in 1830 (but incorporated some 150 years later) is in the Township of Harlem. If that sounds like a strange resonance to Manhattan, it's not accidental -- both areas were settled by the Dutch.

Much of Machesney Park's history revolves around its airport, which has served military, commercial and historic purposes. As of now, the city stands at a little over 20,000 people.

What is there to do in Machesney Park? Plenty! I'll mention my favorite two. My eldest and his visiting cousin, Sampson, would enjoy the 24,000 square feet of wooden interactive playground at "Project Playworks." But I would probably be found tramping along the Willowcreek Path on the other side of town.

Before I sign off, it feels weird to be leaving Illinois without one post about the man of whom I can't but think with every step I take through the state -- Abraham Lincoln. I cannot pretend that he is my favorite President, that honor is bestowed on George Washington. But he's certainly up there.

The more I learn about him, the more interesting he becomes. Hardly the monotonic slave-freer he is often made out to be, he came to office using the language of status quo. He hardly resembled the man that would go to say "house divided against itself" and "understood just as well, and even better than we do now."

He was a man of shrewd politics and amazing grit. He knew well the risk to his life, he survived plots before that of Booth's.

But in the end, what Lincoln means to me is that we still have a union. In Europe, it seems, the trend is to head in the other direction. I am proud of the land which I now traverse (virtually and otherwise) and proud of the man that once led it.

58,100 united steps over these 3 days. Cheers,

8/2-3/2006 - Steve Mirsky, for the not-so scientific Americans

2006-08-18T13:42:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I logged a podcast review. I have, of late, been listing away from fiction and sports and into education (history and science). My latest such podcast is that of Scientific American. Steve Mirsky, long-time contributor to the magazine, has a podcast. I like science, so I tuned it, but was surprised about what I got.

I guess I was expecting something along the lines of Science Friday (to which I also listen). Serious discussions about science. Science Friday has a very Liberal bent, which I didn't expect to see, and maybe SciAm would take on a range of topics instead of digging into 1 or 2.

Well, I got the range right. Actually, SciAm does more advocacy than does SciFri. From stem-cell research to flu-funding, Mirsky and his interviewees have no compunction against recommending policy and criticizing the administration. In general, I find myself agreeing with their positions, so this doesn't trouble me much, but I was surprised.

The other thing that surprised me is how goofy it is. The first episode brought me a version of CSI - as will never appear on TV.

Detective:      "Have you run the DNA samples?"
Scientist:      "Yes, we should have the results back 3-4 weeks."
Detective:      "OK, compare the fingerprints to the National Database."
Scientist:      "Actually, we're only authorized to use the State Database."

The second episode contained a "WHO's on first" routine about the World Health Organization and the Flu. Both episodes contained "Totally Bogus" in which I try to guess what science stories are real (outcome of comas on soap operas) and which are false (man designs living room to look like Voyager, goes bankrupt loses wife -- actually this was true, except that his wife left him before he opted to redesign his living room).

I enjoy it enough that I am going back to the beginning and listening to all of the episodes. I highly recommend them to Science Enthusiasts.

24,100 unadorned steps today. Cheers,

7/29-8/1/2006 - Marengo, IL

2006-08-17T17:32:00.000-07:00

Would you care to do the tango?
Or nibble on a mango?
Let's dance and dine and then go
To beautiful Marengo!

Tonight I pass through Marengo, Illinois.

6,400 citizens
14 churches
140 beautiful acres of Indian Oaks Park!

In this brief history of the city I learn:

"Calvin Spencer first came into Marengo Township in 1835 was not alone long. A. B. Coon, C. Sponable, R. I Simpkins, John Belden, Mr. Dunham and Dr. W. B. Mason followed soon after, the last named being probably the first physician in the county."

W. B. Mason? Do you mean W. B. Mason? As the latter traces it's history back to 1898 in Brockton, MA, I'm guessing no (although I suppose it could have been his grandson!).

While I'm in Marengo, I might as well check out the Illinois Railway Museum. I'm not a huge railway buff, but there was a time when the railway was the biggest employer, as well as the arteries through which the blood of commerce flowed.

At times like this, I dream longingly of a life where can I take stock of the 1,000 mile walk on which I've just engaged and gaze at a mode of transportation so alien, I need not consider it's distaste. Heck, I don't need the walk so long as I get to avoid cars, trains, etc. But no, I'll be back on my commute, bright and early tomorrow.

55,300 steps over these 4 days. Cheers,

7/26-28/2006 - John Loves Mary

2006-08-17T14:12:00.000-07:00

Mary's Violet Eyes Make Crazy John Stay Up Nights Pondering. Chad, Too.

An august body of astronomical talent has set their eyes on taxonomy. On August 24th, there will be a vote on a set of planetary definitions. Until this week, there has never been an iron-clad definition of just what a planet is. The problem is that, almost any reasonable definition of planet must either [a] exclude Pluto or [b] include something other than our famous 9. Not wanting to rely on Greek Mythology, the commission has finally laid out a definition that would immediately welcome 3 newcomers into the club: Ceres, Charon and the aptly named 2003 UB313.

Starting from us and working our way outwards, the first new planet is Ceres. Currently thought of as the largest asteroid in the belt between Mars and Jupiter, Ceres meets all the criteria. What interests me most about Ceres is that it is the closest of the new potential planets, which means that we will likely increase our efforts to study it. Who knows what that will yield, but I am very interested at the thought. By the by, I thought that I heard that there are two other very large asteroids in the belt. I wonder whether they are potential candidates for future planethood?

The next closest of the early candidates is Charon, better known as "Pluto's moon." It might sound odd Pluto's moon would get planetary consideration while our own (which is bigger) would not. The deal is that "moon" as opposed to "planet" is to be defined as being a function of relative size. So our moon is much smaller than Earth, while Charon is close in size to Pluto. That would make Pluto and Charon binary planets. Pretty cool. We have sent a probe to Pluto, which should arrive in 2015. It would be fantastic if we also got some shots at Charon at the same time.

Our final new candidate is 2003 UB313, a.k.a. Xena (but, pneumonically, what the heck was I supposed to do with that?). Xena is 50% farther away from us than Pluto, which makes it a lot harder to study than the other 2. What we do know about Xena is that it is similar in make-up to Pluto, and considerably larger. Xena is the real problem child here. If Xena is not a planet, then how can Pluto be a planet? I also thought I heard that Xena had a non-planular orbit around the sun, like Pluto. I wonder whether studying the two in concert will give us any insights into gravity and its impacts on orbits? Alas, I worry that the distance will keep us from garnering much from Xena for quite some time.

But lest you think the show ends there, there are plenty more potential planets in our solar system! The next 12 likely candidates would be:

2003 EL
2005 FY
Sedna
Orcus
Quaoar
2002 TX
2002 AW
Varuna
Ixion
Vesta
Pallas
Hygiea

What are we going to do with that?

Elvis fearfully sees others quietly taking away various investments via parliamentary heckling?

38,000 heavenly steps today. Cheers,

7/21-25/2006 - Sleepy Hollow, IL

2006-08-16T18:01:00.000-07:00

As soon as I realized that my route took me through Sleepy Hollow, I downloaded the book (of course) and read it. Although I had never read it before, I'm fairly certain that I'd seen the Disney adaptation.

The first thing I learned is that the book takes place in NY.

The second thing I learned is that Irving clearly anticipated the future existance of goofy animation. The loving detail with which he describes the charicature that is Ichabod Crane almost begs for what Disney added to the image.

Now back to Illinois. My Sleepy Hollow may not be as storied as that Dutch Valley, but it is quaint, and dare I say cute. Founded in 1958, the city boasts fewer residents than my office building. It has a president, rather than a mayor, and a message from the president on the website.

All in all, a pleasant place to rest my weary feet as I walk through.

64,000 sopporific steps over these 5 days. Cheers,

7/18-20/2006 - Of People, Pandas and Pawns

2006-08-16T11:42:00.000-07:00

Those who know me (including the 4 of you who read my blog - OK 5 counting JW4) know that I have been gradually drifting rightward since moving to Cambridge. Maybe it's that I'm getting older and the base of my politics is relocating from heart to brains. Maybe it's my naturally contrarian reaction to the "moderates" in the People's Republic of Cambridge. But either way, my opinions have changed on many subjects, from those of the undergraduate I once was.

But if there's any subject that can drive me immediately back to my erstwhile comrades, it's the subject of Intelligent Design. For those of you who haven't been following this issue, there are those who strongly disagree with the basic tenets of Evolution. Simplified, evolution is essentially the theory that the current set of animals descended from some common ancestors. So that even though octopi don't look a whole lot like elephants, you can probably find something, far enough back, that gradually evolved into each, via different routes.

Intelligent design, alternately suggests, that animals "were designed" pretty much as they are. Sure, you can see "micro-evolution" over various time periods, but genetic material doesn't really have the ability to engender such large scale changes.

Were that all, I would have sympathy with the proponents of Intelligent Design. I also believe a lot of things which aren't true (that markets are efficient, that I might win the lottery, that we can still do some good in Iraq). And evolution really is offensive to some who, for whatever reason, would like to believe that humanity was put here for some higher cause. However, they have engaged in some tactics that I just can't accept and really hurt their cause in several significant ways. Whenever I read about the ongoing debate between ID and the Darwinists, the Liberal in me grabs a lantern and rides from Charleston to Concord…

As much as I'd like to talk more about ID (and I probably will in upcoming posts) what I really meant to say was this. In the interest of learning more about the science and the debate, I asked Google to find me a blog on the subject. And Google did, a blog called http://scienceblogs.com/evolutionblog/. The funny thing is the author of the non-anonymous blog (hey, it's even got a photo). It's a guy who graduated from high school with me. And not just any guy from high school. This was my vice president of math team! I was his vice president of the chess team! OK, I was a big-time dork in high school. (Of course now I'm an actuary, professional walker and part-time blogger, so I've left the past behind me).

I'm just psyched to have reconnected.

51,500 web-footed steps today. Cheers,

7/13-17/2006 - Elk Grove Village, IL

2006-08-14T17:55:00.000-07:00

If you ever find yourself looking for something whimsical to say about Elk Grove Village (and who wouldn't want to say something whimsical about Elk Grove Village?) I highly recommend that you stay away from this website, which appears to be entirely interested in the process of bringing business to the region. For example, here are some useful tidbits from the site's "demographics" section:

A diverse population encompassing all ages, occupations and incomes
Highly educated residents with above-average test scores and advanced levels of education
One of the lowest property tax rates in the metropolitan Chicago
An estimated controlled growth rate of 18.6% over the next 15 years

Not quite what I was looking for... Happily, there's Wikipedia, which tells me that Elk Grove is home to 35,000 people (and many elk) and was the birth place of two members of the band "Smashing Pumpkins," who are recording their first album in 7 years. It is not the birthplace of Gallagher, who was better known for smashing watermelons. While many think of watermelons as being round, the Japanese have developed a square watermelon.

But I digress.

80,600 disinterested steps over these 5 days. Cheers,

7/10-12/2006 - On checking one's assertions

2006-08-10T11:21:00.000-07:00

For reasons I don't fully understand, I get weekly e-mails from Ken Mehlmann, of the Republican National Party. Talking about Senator Lieberman's defeat, this week's missive contains the sentence:

"For a political party to reject a respected Senator who just six years ago was its candidate for Vice President is virtually without precedent."

I'm sure he would have preferred to say "is without precedent," so the presence of the word "virtually" interested me particularly. Any idea of about whom Ken was thinking? I had the hazy recollection that there was a 1-term president who lost the re-nomination, and thought this could be what Ken was hampered by. So I googled "one term presidents" and the top link was:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Presidents_who_served_one_term_or_less
Amazing.
I discovered that no-less than 5 sitting presidents have lost the nomination for the second term:

Tyler (Whigs)
Fillmore (Whigs)
Pierce (a.k.a. worst President so far, Democrat)
Johnson (Liberal when he had a heart, Conservative when he had a brain)
Chester A. Arthur (Republican)

4 out of the 5 above Vice Presidents who became president after the deaths of their President (Harrison, Taylor, Lincoln and Garfield). So it seems like about 10% of sitting presidents -- who, Like Lieberman, were respected enough to be named as VPs -- couldn't carry the national party within 4 years of taking office. Based on that, I'm not sure why it would seem quite so surprising that a VP candidate couldn't carry a local party more than 4 years after failing to take office.

Had Ken omitted the word "virtually" I wouldn't even have thought to check. This moment in civic history brought to you by the honorable goal of truth in advertising..

34,000 lame-duck waddles today. Quack.

7/5-9/2006 - Chicago, IL

2006-08-09T20:14:00.000-07:00

My kind of town, Chicago is
My kind of town.
My kind of people, too.
People who smile at you

And each time I Roam, chicago is
Calling me home, chicago is
Why I just brim like a cload
Its my kind of town

My kind of town, Chicago is
My kind of town, Chicago is
My kind of razzmatazz
And it has, All That Jazz

And each time I leave, chicago is
Tuggin my sleeve, chicago is
The Wrigley Building, chicago is
The Union Stockyard, chicago is
One town that wont let youd downIts my kind of town!

79,000 blue-eyed steps today. Cheers,

7/4/2006 - Happy Birthday U.S.A.!!!

2006-08-09T19:54:00.000-07:00

For our 10th anniversary, the family rented a cottage by a lake in New Hampshire. In many ways, quite the perfect little vacation. There was much walking, sight seeing, eating in luxury and even a little sleeping. Although only a little.

While I don't live for fireworks, I do live in Boston and have long believed that July 4th = Fireworks. Little did I know what was in store.

For starters, everyone owns fireworks in New Hampshire. I think that even I owned fireworks in New Hampshire. Starting around 5pm every night, they would go off, wherever. Near us, not near us, it's like $10,000 worth of amateur-grade fireworks were shot off every night starting with July 1st.

We asked about the 4th, hoping for a show. We were surprised to learn that our little lake village was the proud owner of the record for "earliest July 4th fireworks" in NH. At the stroke of midnight, the show would begin.

Well, with 2 kids, neither of whom sleeps perfectly, that didn't seem to be an option for us, so around 11, we crawled into bed and called it a night. What we didn't seem to realize is that the fireworks would be fired from within half a mile of our cottage.

At 12:00.01, me, the wife and my eldest sprung awake as the entire cottage rattled. Seconds later, another volley hit and we realized that sleep was done. The 3 of us ambled over to a window and watched. Despite a few trees and cottages in the way, we had a spectacular view. So we watched for a while. The eldest was inclined to try sleeping again, but nothing doing.

Forty minutes later, a tremendous volley shot off signaling that sleep was just around the corner. For several seconds, the 3 of us sat, soaking the tranquility that can only follow ammunitic cacophony. The silence was broken by the siren that we came to recognize as the baby. Perhaps he'd been awake the entire time but too terrified to cry.

With effort, we got both kids back to sleep, and eventually, ourselves.

21,100 patriotic steps tonight,
HIP!
HIP!
HIP!
TIGER!TIGER!TIGER!
SIS!SIS!SIS!
BOOM!BOOM!BOOM!
BAH!!!!!!!!
U!S!A!
U!S!A!
U!S!A!
(Cheers)

7/1-3/2006 - If you can't take the heat...

2006-08-09T08:16:00.000-07:00

The Boston winter gave me plenty of opportunities to experiment with walking in 20 degree weather. The Boston summer has given me a few opportunities to try the other extreme. For the most part, I have tried to take my longer walks either in the early morning (6-8 AM) or after nightfall, but the excuse has arisen for something more adventurous now and then, and I have not looked the other way.

While I had a few mildly interesting discoveries during the winter (e.g. that to keep my fingers warm, I need a new coat, not new gloves) but I really have very little to say about summer walking. The two tricks I have employed in the 90 degree heat are

Drink before I'm thirsty
Hug the shade

I took a pair of twenty-minute walks in 100 degree weather, but I was pretty beat when I was done.

Alaska dreaming, on such a summer's day.

45,500 hot-footed steps today. Cheers,

6/26-30/2006 - Gary, IN

2006-08-08T18:23:00.000-07:00

In the wake of the Gold Rush, Henry Wells and William Fargo saw the opportunity for a banking and delivery store, and so a National Icon was formed. From the Pony Express to the Butterfield Line, Wells, Fargo and Company became synonymous with secure transportation.

In 1888, Wells-Fargo became the first nationwide express company. By 1910 it had 6,000 locations and by 1918 it had swelled to 10,000.

As the times changed, Wells-Fargo changed with it. A short list of the banking innovations pioneered by Wells-Fargo:

Drive-up tellers
Banking by phone
Express lines
Credit cards
Automated teller machines
Online banking

Or at least, that's what the Wells-Fargo website would like to imply. Technically, all it says is:

New banking concepts not only changed where people banked, but also how they banked. Drive-up tellers, banking by phone, express lines, credit cards, automated teller machines and online banking are some of the innovative solutions to modern customers’ needs. As in the stagecoach days, Wells Fargo has been a pioneer in bringing banking convenience to its customers.

They never quite manage to say that Wells-Fargo had anything to do with these innovations. According to this website, Chemical Bank had the first working ATM. This website says that Hillcrest State Bank was the first to the drive through. The first bank issued credit card? Flatbush National Bank.

Hmmmm.

60,900 flim-flamming steps today. Cheers,

6/21-25/2006 - Michigan City, IN

2006-08-07T18:18:00.000-07:00

Forgive me father, for I have blogged. It's been, oooh, about 2 weeks since I was last here.

That will be 4 laps around Cambridge and one stroll through Boston.

Which brings me, of all places, to Michigan City, IN. I have to say, MI, IN has one of the best web sites among the cities I've visited. The scrap book (linked a minute ago) provides a great panorama of how the beach used to appear. And the beach seems to be an important feature of the city. One of the photos calls Michigan City "the playland of the Midwest." And about now, I could use a nice walk along the beach.

Michigan City, along the banks of Lake Michigan, was conceived as a harbor to help bring supplies to the early settlers of Indiana. The land was purchased for about $200/acre (eat your heart out Canterbridgians) and the town was built.

The harbor never took off (competition from Chicago) but the ever-resiliant city turned instead to the newer mode of transportation and became a major producer of railcars.

The earliest settlers came from Massachusetts, and I'm proud that my adopted state could adopt such a city.

101,100 steps over 5 days! Cheers,

6/18-20/2006 - Snacking at work

2006-08-01T01:29:00.000-07:00

I've taken to the habit of stockpiling large amounts of food at work. Because I keep kosher, I can't just go down to the cafeteria and eat a nourishing meal (unless nourishing includes potato chips, twizzlers and diet pepsi). Also, I eat both breakfast and lunch at work. So I have taken to having cereal, soy milk, peanut butter, jelly and rolls around on which to feed myself. It was a short jump from there to opening my own little cafeteria. Now I have tea, seltzer water, oatmeal and even a few bottles of Starbucks' Frappaccino.

So today, I decided to allow myself to keep snacks around as well (even though I can get these downstairs). I guess I must envy my kids, because my first two snacks purchased were:

Apple sauce (which I feed the baby) and
Pudding (which my eldest gets as a treat for being good on special occasions)

With all of their allergies, I still want what they have. How odd.

55,800 regressive steps over these 3 days. Cheers,

6/15-17/2006 - Turmoil in Italy

2006-07-15T20:44:00.000-07:00

One of these days I'll have to post about the cities I am walking through. Until then...

There is turmoil in Italy over the latest football (soccer) news. No, not the world cup, that's old news. Right now the focus is on a game rigging scandal. 5 are so teams may be found guilty and if they are? Relegation to a lower league. This is what really gets me. Who suffers and what happens if a 1st division team suddenly becomes a 3rd division team?

Owners - OK. Sucks for them. One can imagine that the value of their team would drop by 80%+ overnight. Assuming that they are ultimately to blame, this is probably a good thing.

Employees - I had to throw them in there. I have to think that they suffer big time. They used to work for an employer that was rewarding on both a financial and spiritual level. I am sure that many will lose their jobs and those who stay can't possibly imagine that the job will be as good as it used to be. What burns me here is that the majority of these folks won't have done anything wrong. In the U.S. they could sue the owner. In Italy, that may not be realistic. God bless America and the Plaintiff's bar.

Fans - I live within walking distance of Fenway. How would I feel if it was suddenly a single A ball club? How the heck would they maintain a premiere stadium if it were only a single A ball club. I have to think that I would be a big loser in this scenario.

Finally the players - This is the question that I find most interesting. I imagine that the free agents is the easiest situation - their value gets bid up well by the 5 or so teams that suddenly get inserted into the league (and who have no present talent, so need to move fast).

Elite players under contract? Are the owners allowed to trade them? If they are, they could trade them for cash and get enriched in the process. Alternatively, they could trade them for minor league talent and beat the heck out of their new opponents. They could possibly even do both! You can imagine that the judicial system is well aware of this and will try to do something to prevent it, but those contracts have significant value. Will the courts break up the contracts? Can they? Who knows.

What about the bench? I wonder how I would feel in this situation. If I stay with the team, I have the opportunity to be a big fish and probably get warm fuzzies from the die hard fans. If I get traded, I'll just be bench somewhere else. Other than that, I got nothing on these guys.

So bottom line? It sounds like the owners (who are probably really at fault) may be able to play their way out of this and the real losers will be many of those who were innocent. Based on my totally unqualified opinion.

34,000 cynical steps over these 3 days. Cheers,

6/12-14/2006 - Guest post from the Baby

2006-07-12T06:43:00.000-07:00

Mu-muh?

2 steps today. Cheers,

(Explanation: Today the baby took his first two steps today. The Wife held him until he was stable and pointed him at Most Beloved Frog. The baby took two faltering steps towards MBF and pitched forwards onto his face. It is, perhaps, a little early to break out "baby's first pedometer," but as you can imagine, I'm incredibly proud.

29,900 schepping steps over these 3 days. Cheers,)

6/11/2006 - Marathon Sunday

2006-07-10T13:12:00.000-07:00

Astute readers may have noticed that I have broken with my current practice and posted individual days in this post and the previous one. The reason is that I really wanted to trumpet my achievement for the day (44,700 steps). It is the first time I broke 40k and I broke it with authority!

For starters, this Sunday was "Father's day observed" in our household. For various reasons we weren't going to be able to do anything on the 18th, so the wife gave me my present today: understanding when I got up at 5:45 and walked until about 9:15. I can't remember exactly how many steps I came up with in the 3+ hours that I walked, but problem more than 20,000 (I did take a quick break here and there on my route).

When I came home, my wife was busily setting up a lemonade stand for my eldest. We have greatly benefited from the angels over at Boston's Children's Hospital and my son had elected to sell lemonade and turn over the revenue (not profits - we didn't actually reap any of those) over to the hospital. It was a smashing success. While the wife and child manned the desk, my job was to keep the baby asleep, which I did by walking. I picked up another 8-10,000 steps along the way.

We went home and had lunch, played some games and then it was time for Wife, Eldest and Baby to nap (baby's second of the day). That sent me out on the streets for another 6,000. Adding in a reasonable amount of other steps throughout the day, I came pretty close to 45k!

Not a bad haul.

44,700 steps today! Cheers,

6/10/2006 - Recipe of the day

2006-07-10T11:51:00.000-07:00

Mashed potatoes!

No wheat
No eggs
No dairy (I used soy)
No nuts
Etc.

1) Peel 6 potatoes and pop them in a pot of boiling salt water (maybe half a teaspoon)
2) Slice one onion and one clove of garlic and fry in small amount of oil
3) Throw out fried onion and garlic as I couldn't figure out how to blend it into the mash
4) Once potatoes are boiled and really tender, mash the heck out of the 'em.
5) If possible let 4.5 year old perform step 4
6) In pot that so recently contained unmashed potatoes, heat 1/3 cup of soymilk and melt 3 tablespoons of margarine
7) Spoon mash back into pot, little by little, stirring between each addition.
8) Divide result into two portions.
9) Season one portion with garlic powder, paprika and freshly ground black pepper
10) Give other portion to 4.5 year old.

Mega success. Not only was the mash as creamy as ice cream (although not quite as cold) but my eldest asked for seconds. He didn't finish it, but he asked. The only problem is that it is evident that this is a dish to eat soon after making. It takes too long for me to whip up a batch between coming home from work and sitting down to dinner, and I worry how it would keep if I wanted to make it on Thursday night but serve it for Saturday lunch.

Still, unlike most of my culinary experiments, it worked the first time and tasted great. My future work with it will be primarily [a] how to cut down prep time and [b] how reheat. I think that the easiest way to speed up prep time will be to not hold baby while peeling potatoes. I also think that I should cut the potatoes up before boiling. On the reheating side, I'm taking suggestions...

16,000 spud-filled steps today. Cheers,

6/7-9/2006 - Back in action

2006-07-09T20:25:00.000-07:00

Please pardon my most recent absence. I and the missus (and the eldest and the baby) were celebrating our 10th anniversary in New Hampshire. I'd like to say "the highlight of the trip was" but there are just too many things competing for that honor.

It may have been traversing the Polar Caves with my boy.
It may have been teaching said boy to play ping-pong (he has some work to do).
It may have been walking the baby along the boardwalk and watching the sun rise.

But it was probably toasting 10 wonderful years of marriage and looking forward to the next 10.

Thanks for the ride M.O.M. Where do we go next?

43,600 steps over these 3 days. Cheers,

6/4-6/2006 - On a roll

2006-06-29T21:11:00.000-07:00

So the Sox have won 12 straight. It's been fun. They won in the last at bat; they've won in the second inning. They've won on the backs of verteran and the arms of babes. Streaks are weird.

It really is the case that going 11-1 would have been no cause for remorse, but once you get on the roll, it becomes painful to fall off.

More intense than the playoffs? Maybe. I'll have to check my blood pressure and let you know.

Sports are bad for your health.

59,600 steps over these 3 days. Cheers,

6/1-3/2006 - Into the Abyss

2006-06-29T10:17:00.000-07:00

The baby didn't sleep too good last night. Trying to take a page out of Elizabeth Pantley's playbook, I have started to keep a log of his sleeping habits:

7:50 PM Fell asleep in my arms. Put in crib.
8:30 PM Woke up yowling. Moved to carseat
10:50 PM Woke up. Inconsolable. Brought to mummy for nai-nais.
11:20 PM Back in crib
1:05 AM Out of crib. Back to mummy.
2:10 AM Msme,4,.4
2:25 AM No, you take him.
4:00 AM Time to walk the halls
4:30 AM Back to mummy.
6:00 AM The eldest is up, dammit. Baby in crib
6:45 AM Eldest out of bed, baby surprisingly still in crib
7:30 AM Dad in crib
9:00 AM Moved dad from crib to keyboard. Good luck with those internal rate of return models.

So as I stood blinkingly in the lunch line, my eyes hit on a bottle I hadn't noticed before. Starbucks Frappuccino. With a star over the "I." How cute. I looked at the diet soft drinks or tea that I usually walked away with, but somehow ended up purchasing the Frapp. For $2.25. I hope it tastes bad. It doesn't.

Today coffee. Tomorrow I'll be injecting caffeine subcutaneously.

44,500 palpitating steps today. Cheers,

5/27-31/2006 - St. Joseph, MI

2006-06-27T18:48:00.000-07:00

Today I arrive at St. Joseph, MI, the "Riviera of the Midwest." Since I am passing through, I might as well take advantage of the Virtual, Historic tour. The city traces its roots back to the 17th century, when the St. Joseph river was discovered and documented for the first time (by European folk, that is). A fort was built and the city eventually grew into a succesful port town.

In 1880, some investors built an amusement park with slides, roller coasters and a "people mover." For some reason I am surprised to hear of such things in the 19th century.

Although the tour continued on, I ended my tour at the Krasl art museum, with its outdoor sculptures. I am reminded of my own beloved DeCordova museum, not far from Walden pond.

All in all, a delightful town and delightful website.

95,600 enlightened steps today. Cheers,

5/24-26/2006 - A load of corn

2006-06-26T21:22:00.000-07:00

Mexico may be out of the World Cup, but it's still in my heart. A combination of allergies (particularly milk, eggs and wheat) have conspired to keep us from eating much of American cuisine (sandwiches, omelets, pasta, etc.) As a result, we have been experimenting with other cuisines.

Today's experiment: Arepas.

2 cups of white corn meal
1 teaspoon of salt
3 cups of water

Mix well. Fry until golden brown on both sides.

Yum.

Being the non-Mexican that I am, I am anxiously considering variants. Tonight I tried adding black pepper to the batter. Next time, I might try sugar (with syrup on top).

58,500 pasos hoy. Aclamaciones,

5/19-23/2006 - Paw Paw, MI

2006-06-26T18:28:00.000-07:00

There's a little ditty
They're singing in the city
Espeshly when they've been
On the gin, Or the beer
If you've got the patience,
Your own imaginations
Will tell you just exactly what you want to hear...

Oom-pah-pah!
Oom-pah-pah!
That's how it goes,
Oom-pah-pah!
Oom-pah-pah!
Ev'ryone knows.
They all suppose what they want to suppose
When they hear...oom-pah-pah!!

To tell you the truth, I've never fully "got" that song. But if you're trying to figure out in which city they sing, it is surely Paw Paw, MI.

According to the city's website,

"Paw Paw is nestled in the heart of wine country in central Van Buren County, the Paw Paw area provides an idyllic setting for raising a family or relaxing through retirement. The village has several popular restaurants that draws [sic] patrons from miles around; it also boasts one of the few surviving small town movie theaters in the area. In the center of town is beautiful Maple Lake which features an outdoor amphitheater on it shores which is host to many concerts in the summer and fall. Maple Island offers picnic facilities, a beach and a recreational park."

I'm not much of wine drinker and I'm not ready for retirement, so I think that I will head off to Maple Island to picnic. Happily, Wikipedia furnishes more details:

The MapleStory world is a set of explorable continents in the MMORPG MapleStory. There are three main continents common to all versions in the MapleStory world: Maple Island, Victoria Island, and Ossyria Island. There are also two subcontinents common to all versions in the MapleStory world: Florina Island and Ludibrium Island.

In the JapanMS version, there is an additional continent called Jipang which is based on Japanese culture; similarly, Fairy Tale Village is based on the Korean culture. There is also a Peach Blossom Island accessible only to the ChinaMS, MapleSEA, and TaiwanMS versions where traditional Chinese marriages take place.

Dongfang and Formosa are continents exclusive to ChinaMS and TaiwanMS versions respectively.

There are also event towns, such as Happyville, which is available to players only during the Christmas season.

In addition, Premium Road has been made available to KoreaMS, JapanMS and ThailandMS; it can be accessed only if the player is connected from a real-life Internet Cafe which has previously made contracts with the local programming staff of MapleStory.

Well, heck. Why didn't I go to Happyville to begin with?

73,100 incredibly virtual steps today. Cheers,

5/16-18/2006 - Time to get serious

2006-06-26T17:34:00.000-07:00

I am more than a month behind! As several of you have noted the inverse relationship between the quality and lag of posting, I'm going to start doubling, nay, tripling and even quintupling up.

For now, I will let myself post 3 days at a time just because and 5 days when I post a city. That should catch me up fast. I'll "let the air out" as it becomes clear I no longer need such crutches.

Speaking of getting serious, I tried a new strategy yesterday. As I may have mentioned in prior posts, I take long walks early on Sunday mornings (typically from 6-8). I don't want to stretch these out too often, because they become onerous on the Wife if the kids wake up at 6:10. So, I had pretty much hit my limit around 14,000+ steps for such trips. On my FIL's advice, I decided to kick it up a notch yesterday. After I had gotten warmed up, I started jogging 100 steps out of each 500. This had the desired effect in that I managed to fit in about 16,000 steps in 2 hours, but I must confess, I am second guessing myself today.

I forgot how brutal running can be. I probably ran 1 mile tops yesterday and I am expeiencing some weird aches and pains. Not muscle pains, I generally regard those as objects of pride. Rather, I have some weird discomfort in my gimpy knee (not actual pain, happily) and some mild soreness in my shins.

It's probably time to dial back a notch.

30,200 impulsive steps today. Cheers,

5/15/2006 - Award ceremony

2006-06-19T19:41:00.000-07:00

Well, Kevin and M.O.M. teamed up to figure out my Miller's puzzle, so a poem each:

First to Kevin, who recognized my refernce to Chaucer's Miller's Tale:

When in April somebody writes
The answer my question incites
I'll put up a poem
To happily show him
His reading, this author delights!

And now to M.O.M., who caught the Glenn Miller reference:

She's glad she heard of,
(The mother of my children)
The best trombonist.

8,100 most deserving steps today. Cheers,

5/14/2006 - Daddy's day

2006-06-19T18:40:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry not to have been posting much recently, my day-job has heated up a bit (and I still have to keep it, despite the roaring success of this blog).

Yesterday, in real life, was Daddy's day. My wife gave me a lovely gift. We have been homebound for this reason or that, but she sent me an my eldest down to the City for a 24-hour whirlwind tour. We saw my parents and in-laws (complete with brothers-in-law and attaches). The boy played all sorts of games with his cousin, ranging from frisbee, to baseball to cycling. We tried to convince them to play chess, but they mostly just wanted to mash the pieces together.

We drove back to Boston, to the heartfelt strains of "Joseph" and ambled our way into bed, an almost perfect weekend. I was only sorry not to catch up with the Gnome (speedy recovery). I look forward to our next visit.

10,000 happy steps today. Cheers,

5/13/2006 - Spammity spam

2006-06-16T10:13:00.000-07:00

You know what spam I'm getting frequently these days?

"I found your profile on the web recently so I decided to e-mail you to get to know you better. I will be coming to your country soon…"

Thanks. I'll alert the National Guard. The thing that gets me about these spams.

And the "African Financial" spams.
And the cheaper drug spams.

Is that it is almost beyond belief that the authors even expect to get hits. I am led to understand that every so occasionally someone hands their financial information when asked to do so, but I just can't believe it.

As much as I hate to say it, I almost have more respect for the spams that make an effort. Oh? My company's technical support department is alerting me to a security threat? No, it's coming from an outside e-mail address. You almost got me. Now that I can disrespect less.

I used to get more artistic spams. My e-mail system provides a brief snippet of each e-mail before I open it. If the e-mail only consists of HTML, I will see nothing in the snippet, but some HTML e-mails include a brief note letting me know what the spam is about, just in case my e-mail application can't handle HTML. And some HTML e-mails contain a brief note that isn't remotely related to the subject of the e-mail. For example, I used get bits of Shakespeare soliloquies, e-mailed to my very own inbox. But my favorite was the spam that included an excerpt from St. Augustine's Confessions in Latin.

In the interest of full disclosure, the only Latin I know is "sempre ubi sub ubi" and I failed to get through "Confessions" in English when it was assigned in college. But happily, I have Google. Without opening the e-mail, I typed a few words into Google and quickly discovered what I was reading.

Of course, my favorite sub-HTML note may have been the one that said: "Get a better e-mail application." My heavens. I'm sorry for causing you inconvenience, Mr. Spammer.

12,500 slithering steps today. Cheers,

5/12/2006 - Hidden contest

2006-06-10T21:10:00.000-07:00

The sign-off on the end of the Kalamazoo post has two meanings. I'll dedicate a haiku, limerick and sonnet to the first commenter to guess both of them.

11,000 cryptic steps today. Cheers,

5/9, 10 and 11/2006 - Kalamazoo, MI

2006-06-10T20:55:00.000-07:00

A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I gotta gal (do doo, doo-doo)
In Kalamzaoo.

I've never actually set foot in Kalamazoo, but my wife has. Why? Their annual symposium on all things Medieval. Yes, every year this surprisingly large city of 70,000 is over-run by pilgrims who have had their courage pricked (not screwed to its sticking place. That would be Early Modern.)

So what has my wife to report of these lovely climes?

First, that there is a billboard in the middle of town that reads:

"Yes, there really is a city of Kalamazoo."

I don't blame them. I asked the question when my wife first went.

Second, that the local pubs do include such names as "Grendel's Den" suggesting that feeding Medievalists is one of the major industries in town.

All in all, it really seems a lovely, though quirky town. I can't wait to come next time my wife finds herself there.

And in case anyone is curious, my wife is the toast of Kalamazoo.

41,200 Miller's steps today. Cheers,

5/8/2006 - Yin and Yang at your local Starbucks

2006-06-10T18:58:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I went to Starbucks to order my usual. My order was taken (or not taken, to be exact) by an attendant who smiled but was incompetent. After I rattled off my drink, she stared (still smiling) like a deer in the headlights.

To be fair, my drink has 4 adjectives, and they get it wrong about 1 in 3 times, so I cheerfully repeated my order. Still nothing. I was about to repeat myself again when the other attendant called out:

"Venti vanilla soy chai latte?"

I couldn't help noticing that the other attendant, though quite competent, was frowning. Perhaps she didn't approve of my drink.

60 seconds later, I got my drink. It was perfect. Soy? Yup. Vanilla? Yup. Tea? Yup. And just the right mix. I was about to walk out when I realized that I had just received perfect service. Exactly the drink I wanted, served with a smile.

I tipped them. They smiled.

13,000 well served steps today. Cheers,

5/7/2006 - If so, please cancel my subscription

2006-06-07T16:37:00.000-07:00

I thought I read a unique cooking instruction today:

Drain the meat with coriander

I considered the possibilities. Perhaps if I poured the meat juice into some prepared coriander, it would imbue the spice with a meaty taste. But to what end?

Or, perhaps, I was supposed to add the coriander earlier and now I need to get rid of it. But how?

Or, just perhaps, I was suppoed to

"drain meat with colander."

20,400 misunderstood steps today. Cheers,

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5/6/2006 - And here's the pitch

2006-06-06T21:56:00.000-07:00

When I watch a baseball game, I always count pitches (surprised?). I'm not sure how this started but there it is.

With the introduction of more recent theories on pitching staff management, more managers are focusing on pitch count and as a result, I have gotten better at making predictions. But predictions don't always come true.

Last night, my beloved (and patient) Sox took 62 pitches through the first 3 innings. I thought there was a chance that they would bench the opposing pitcher after 5 innings. Alas, they then saw only 26 pitches in the next 3 innings, allowing the pitcher to go 7 (and win).

Ah, life. You fickle distributor of uncertain fortune.

12,500 disappointed steps today. Cheers,

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5/3-5/5/2006 - Ceresco, Michigan

2006-06-04T19:49:00.000-07:00

And so I pad my way into Ceresco, MI. As I root about the internet for information on this fair city, I find much less than I do about Ceresco, WI, but that's not my point. Back in the east, I frequently found cities' official websites and was able to use that to track down interesting historical facets to dig into. In the midwest, I am finding such sites more infrequently.

I wonder whether that is a legitimate regional difference. For example, are we Northeasterners the types who loudly proclaim whatever the heck we happen to be doing while the Midwesterners quietly go about their business? Or are we intellectual types who take pride in self-examination while they are content to what is be.

Were I really going on this hike, I would be struck by the changing character of the U.S. and Canada as I set foot in such different regions. In reality I am forced to sit in my ivory enclave in Massachusetts and surmise about what would have been.

Incidentally, Ceresco, Wisconsin was the home of the "Wisconsin Phalanx," an attempt at Utopian living modeled on the philosophy of Charles Fourier. The U.S. is littered with such attempts. A few of them ended in tragedy, but most just faded out as jaded citizens faced the reality that Utopia wasn't worth the effort.

Fourier's Utopia was based on limited population, capitalism and, um, whoopee. The largest, most succesful American version of his Utopia was the "North American Phalanx," in Monmouth County, NJ, of all places. It muddled its way through about 12 years of existance before booze (abolition) women (suffrage) and God (religious affiliation) drove the community apart.

42,300 perfect steps over the past 3 days. Cheers,

5/2/2006 - Croatian Toast

2006-05-29T19:01:00.000-07:00

[Blogger's note - The name of this recipe is in no way intended to convey any disrespect for the people of Croatia. It was just clear, when the chips fell, that my recipe was anything but French Toast, hence the need for the alternate name. Since Scottish Toast and Krgystanian Toast just didn't seem right, I went with Croatian.]

French toast with no dairy, eggs or wheat:

1) Cut several slices of spelt bread
2) Soak in a mixture of soymilk, sugar and ground cinnamon
3) Fry (definitely not in peanut oil)

Apparently, egg plays an important role in the whole "French Toast" thing. The Croation version was kind of soggy and a little more oily (since the toast was able to absorb it better). On the other hand, it was sweet and cinamonny and even the eldest ate it!

11,300 culinary steps today. Cheers,

5/1/2006 - Pushing 30(k)

2006-05-29T18:56:00.000-07:00

It will be a month before I get to report this in my tag, so I might as well say it today. I got 30,000+ steps today for the first time in quite a while. Between being sick and generally changing my weekend routine, it has been some time since I have been able to really flex the muscles. On Memorial day, the wife invited me to take a walk in the morning.

I rolled out of bed around 5:45, grabbed my gear and bolted out of the house. I hiked 3.5 miles to the local kosher Dunkin' Donuts and back (yes, I put on as many calories as I removed). That was good for 14,000 steps before 8 am!

I am proud to say that I (think that I) didn't drive the wife batty taking additional steps the rest of the day. In my experience, slightly more than 1,000 steps per hour is reasonable if you are puttering around the house. I found excuses for a couple extra short walks and we all made our way over to the farmer's market and before you knew it, there I was.

It's good to be back.

11,900 back-to-form steps today. Cheers,