Workouts this week: 1
Workouts/Total days: 49/90
I've no comment! Bah! Un"Lucky" number 13 I guess.
Since the new year is week 14 (and I'll be at work for four of those days), I'd expect some improvement.
A store that sells new husbands has just opened in New York City, where a woman may go to choose a husband. Among the instructions at the entrance is a description of how the store operates: "You may visit this store ONLY ONCE! There are six floors and the value of the products increases as the shopper ascends the flights. The shopper may choose any item from a particular floor, or may choose to go up to the next floor, but you cannot go back down except to exit the building!"
So, a woman goes to the store to find a husband. On the first floor the sign reads: "These men Have Jobs". The second floor sign reads: "These men Have Jobs and Love Kids". The third floor sign reads: "These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, and are Extremely Good Looking."
"Wow," she thinks, but feels compelled to keep going.
At the fourth floor the sign reads: "These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Good Looking and Help With Housework."
"Oh, mercy me!" she exclaims, "I can hardly stand it!"
Still, she goes to the fifth floor and the sign reads: "These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Gorgeous, Help with Housework, and Have a Strong Romantic Streak." She is so tempted to stay, but she goes to the sixth floor and the sign reads: "You are visitor 31,456,012 to this floor. There are no men on this floor. This floor exists solely as proof that women are impossible to please. Thank you for shopping at the Husband Store."
To avoid gender bias charges, the store's owner opens a New Wives store just across the street. It too has six floors. The first floor has wives that love sex. The second floor has wives that love sex and have money. The third through sixth floors have never been visited.
time.blogs.com
Workouts this week: 4
Workouts/Total days: 48/83
Better. It’s still not exactly 5 times a week but getting better. At least I will not have to "have words with myself" as promised if I didn't improve.
Next week will be interesting as I have Monday, Tuesday, and Friday off from work. Since the gym is closed on Monday (Christmas day) and I have to be out of town that day anyway, there is no way to make it. Tuesday and Friday however could see me at the gym if I drag my lazy ass downtown just for a workout. Not the best commute just to hit the gym but fitness trumps convenience eh?
If all goes well, it’ll be another four days for week 13.
Credit: Solar Optical Telescope, Hinode Satellite, JAXA
Another cool shot. I wonder if my current fascination with the sun has anything to do with the fact that it's so damn cold up here these days; duh, it’s like uh, winter?! Deal with it!
Maybe a trip to Hawai’i is in order. I think I'll start a "Send-Rob-to-Hawai'i" charity fund (right after I start that "Buy-Rob-a-new-computer" fund).
Workouts this week: 2 (!)
Workouts/Total days: 44/76
Now this was a down-right crappy week for fitness. Monday and Wednesday were the only days that saw me at the gym. What a slacker! And the reasons (read “thinly veiled excuses”) for missing three days this week?
Tuesday and Thursday mornings I was at 0% energy when I woke up; I’d guess I was fighting some bug but that is pure speculation (read “wishful thinking”). Today my alarm (an electric one) didn’t go off because there was no power for it.
Yup, we got that big wind storm slamming Puget Sound last night. It actually knocked out power at least twice last night. Needless to say, without an alarm clock, I missed my wake-up time for the gym. The only reason I woke in time to get to work was that my backup alarm went off... in other words, my cat wanted to be fed.
It is a bit disturbing that I do not feel much guilt for missing so many days this week. I’ll need to work on that because I should be beside myself with grief, totally depressed, and unable to function... basically a total wreck for missing so many days. I’m slipping.
On the bright side, if there is still no power tonight, I’ll have to find something to do in the dark. If that is the case, I might as well do some push-ups and sit-ups. However, that doesn’t quite count as a workout so I’ll not include it in the count.
Next week better show improvement or I’ll have to have words with myself; and that will not be a pretty sight. On to week 12.
How cool is this!?
This imagery is shown on Astronomy Picture of the Day and titled, A Large Tsunami Shock Wave on the Sun.
According to the site,
"The rampaging tsunami took out some active filaments on the Sun, although many re-established themselves later. The solar tsunami spread at nearly one million kilometers per hour, and circled the entire Sun in a matter of minutes."
There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in the world. However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist (except maybe in Japan) religions, this reduces the workload for Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 378 million (according to the population reference bureau). At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, which comes to 108 million homes, presuming there is at least one good child in each.
Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 967.7 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with a good child, Santa has around 1/1000 of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stocking, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back up the chimney, jump into the sleigh and get onto the next house.
Assuming each of these 108 million stops is evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false, but will accept for the purposes of our calculations), we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom stops or breaks.
This means Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second-3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, and moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour. The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized LEGO set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500 thousands tons, not counting Santa himself. On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that the "flying" reindeer can pull 10 times the normal amount, the job can't be done with eight or even nine of them---Santa would need 360,000 of them. This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch). 600,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance, this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft reentering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy. Per second. Each.
In short, they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team would be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip. Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 m.p.s. in .001 seconds, would be subjected to acceleration forces of 17,000 Gs. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a quivering blob of pink goo.
If Santa ever did exist, he's dead now.
This made the rounds last year so I thought I'd resurrect it for this year as well
Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.
I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2007, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere. And without regard to the race, creed , color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.
By accepting these greetings you are accepting these terms. This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for herself or himself or others, and is void where prohibited by law and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher.
This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.
You learn something new every day! Who would have thought that the Bible would actually be waging a “War on Christmas?”
Jeremiah 10 (King James Version)So basically every “good” Christian out there with a tree in their house is doing exactly the OPPOSITE of what the good Lord said. Oh the horror! Where is a "good" Christian to turn now that even their own book has turned on them?
1 Hear ye the word which the LORD speaketh unto you, O house of Israel:
2 Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them.
3 For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe.
4 They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.
5 They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.
Pastor files plan to reverse gay rights rules
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
OLYMPIA -- A pastor opposed to new civil rights protections for gays and lesbians has filed an initiative to the Legislature to overturn them, but it's not likely to go anywhere because he would have to gather nearly 225,000 signatures by the end of the month.
The Rev. Ken Hutcherson, pastor of Antioch Bible Church in Redmond, filed the initiative Nov. 28. The initiative, which has not yet been given a number and the language of which has not yet been reviewed by the state code reviser's office, would remove the sexual-orientation facet of the state ban on discrimination in housing, employment, insurance and credit.
State lawmakers passed the gay civil rights measure in January.
I just don't get it. For what possible reasons would a "man of God" want to be able to legally discriminate against a homosexual?
My guess is that the Rev. Ken Hutcherson is in fact a closeted homosexual who is so repulsed by his sexuality that he is lashing out at everyone else. His actions definitely fit the M.O. that seems so prevalent in religious and political circles these days.
Poor guy, we should pity him; pray that he might find peace within himself to accept that which God has made.
Workouts this week: 4
Workouts/Total days: 42/69 (oh sixty-nine!)
I'm still trying to figure out the best way to list workout totals so bear with me on this. Ultimately, when I get the time, I think I’d like do some sort of month/year at a glance; who knows.
Anyway, this week was pretty good overall. Obviously I missed one day (Thursday) but the rest of the week showed improvement. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, my weight stayed at 207 but today it was up to 209. However, I think that the overall trend is still loss of fat.
Today I concentrated on the chest for the second time this week. I’m starting to see a bit of muscle growth on the upper inner portion of my pecks. I’m trying to get the weight up but am still stuck at 55 lb dumbbells for inclined bench. Hopefully that will increase soon.
On to week 11.
Found this on Christmas News Letters.
Erma Bombeck's Christmas letter to Martha Stewart:
Dear Martha,
I'm writing this on the back of an old shopping list, pay no attention to the coffee and jelly stains. I'm 20 minutes late getting my daughter up for school, packing a lunch with one hand, on the phone with the dog pound, seems old Ruff needs bailing out, again.
Burnt my arm on the curling iron when I was trying to make those cute curly fries, how DO they do that?
Still can't find the scissors to cut out some snowflakes, tried using an old disposable razor ... trashed the tablecloth. Tried that cranberry thing, frozen cranberries mushed up after I defrosted them in the microwave.
Oh, and don't use Fruity Pebbles as a substitute in that Rice Krispie snowball recipe, unless you happen to like a disgusting shade that resembles puke!
The smoke alarm is going off, talk to ya later.
Love, Erma
Martha Stewart's Christmas letter to Erma Bombeck:Ya gotta love Martha parodies.
Hi Erma,
This perfectly delightful note is being sent on paper I made myself to tell you what I have been up to.
Since it snowed last night, I got up early and made a sled with old barn wood and a glue gun. I hand painted it in gold leaf, got out my loom, and made a blanket in peaches and mauves. Then to make the sled complete, I made a white horse to pull it, from DNA that I had just sitting around in my craft room.
By then, it was time to start making the place mats and napkins for my 20 breakfast guests. I'm serving the old standard Stewart twelve- course breakfast, but I'll let you in on a little secret: I didn't have time to make the tables and chairs this morning, so I used the ones I had on hand. Before I moved the table into the dining room, I decided to add just a touch of the holidays. So I repainted the room in pinks and stenciled gold stars on the ceiling. Then, while the homemade bread was rising, I took antique candle molds and made the dishes (exactly the same shade of pink) to use for breakfast. These were made from Hungarian clay, which you can get at almost any Hungarian craft store.
Well, I must run. I need to finish the buttonholes on the dress I'm wearing for breakfast. I'll get out the sled and drive this note to the post office as soon as the glue dries on the envelope I'll be making. Hope my breakfast guests don't stay too long, I have 40,000 cranberries to string with bay leaves before my speaking engagement at noon. It's a good thing.
Love, Martha Stewart
P.S. When I made the ribbon for this typewriter, I used 1/8-inch gold gauze. I soaked the gauze in a mixture of white grapes and blackberries, which I grew, picked, and crushed last week just for fun.
So a couple of days ago I was trying to transfer some files and discovered that my little 250MB USB flash drive just didn’t have the needed space. Being the “any excuse to buy new computer-related equipment” type, I did the only “logical” thing; I went out and grabbed a new SanDisk Cruzer® Micro 4GB Flash Drive.
I have to say, I am pretty happy with the purchase (after the initial sticker shock of course). The added memory allows me to back-up the important files from my home computer and the U3 CruzerSync software makes the back-up quicker than hunting for the files each time I want to back them up. An added benefit of U3 is that I can be on other computers but use my personal favorites, contacts, and choice files without having to load them onto the computer; there’s even a virus scanner that loads from the flash drive to keep your files safe.
Of course, the lack of a protective cap in lieu of a retractable USB connector is da best... in fact, that was one of the main reasons I went for the Cruzer Micro. My only complaint is that I wanted to get the Titanium version but it only came as high as 2GB.
Thoroughly clean the toilet. Add the required amount of shampoo to the toilet water, and have both lids lifted. Obtain the cat and soothe him while you carry him towards the bathroom.
In one smooth movement, put the cat in the toilet and close both lids (you may need to stand on the lid so that he cannot escape).
CAUTION!!!!!
Do not get any part of your body too close to the edge, as his paws will be reaching out for any purchase they can find.
Flush the toilet three or four times.
Have someone open the door to the outside and ensure that there are no people between the toilet and the outside door.
Stand behind the toilet as far as you can, and quickly lift both lids. The now-clean cat will rocket out of the toilet, and run outside where he will dry himself.
Sincerely,
The DOG
| Zero Point: Four |
|
