Mixed messages

Signage Fail!

Or at least signage placement fail.

The building I work in is two stories tall. There is one flight of stairs that is 22 steps and an elevator. Walking one flight of steps burns about 10 calories.  Standing in an elevator burns about 1 calorie per minute.

Eating one King Size Snickers Bar from the vending machine next to the sign costs 510 calories. After using the steps, that's only 500 calories. A bargain!

I've been negligent

I have neglected my blog lately because of despite the fact that I have had a lot going on. I'm going to attempt to catch up in the next week.

Events...

• Raven Rock Ramble
• Outer Banks trip
  
• 3 Mountain Madness
• Tour de Cure (coming up this weekend)
• Emma turns SEVEN on June 13
  

We deliver for you

Ordered an item from Amazon

• 2/10, Amazon said, "We thought you'd like to know that we shipped your item..." Go to our web site to get your tracking number

• two days after Amazon said it shipped (2/12) USPS said, "There is no record of this item. "

Sent cookies to my grandfather

• one day after I sent it: "Your item was processed and left our RALEIGH, NC 27676 facility on February 11, 2009. "

That's handy, I went to the post office with it then. With this service, it kind of makes you wonder why the US Postal Service is in trouble!

I have to ask, "What can brown do for you?"

No singing required

My mother joined the iPod contingent in July with a nano phatty. Since then, she has enjoyed it but complained about singing. As it turns out, she sings a lot when she is listening to music and she was concerned about getting strange looks while singing with headphones on. In fact, on a recent flight, she had to switch a podcast because she was singing on the plane -- not a good thing.

This morning, I was listening to my iPod in the car and it selected three songs in a row that required singing.

• Never Get Old Sinead O'Connor
• The Perfect Girl by The Cure, especially the "You're such a strange girl, I think you come from another world"
• Chain of Fools from The Committments

(links to iTunes store if you want to listen to a preview)

This is odd since I don't seem to have inherited the singing with music gene but it did make me think of her! Maybe I was singing because it's sunny out. Maybe I was singing because it's Friday. Maybe I was singing because I'm my mother's daughter.

That Winning Feeling

Yesterday afternoon I was doing some errands and listening to my iPod in the car. I had it on what I call "the big shuffle" and I let it pick out anything from Disturbed to Robert Plant to Barenaked Ladies to Bach. So, I was listening to No Doubt when on came a voice saying "...and there's another point that I'd like to make about language and that is that studies have been done that words spoken at random have an effect on us. So, not only am I very careful to censor my speech but I also deliberately choose words depending on what I want to do. I mentioned in the book, for instance, that sometimes I drive to the barn and depending on whatever spirit moves me, I might say harmony harmony harmony and then I ride my horse and have absolutely the most harmonious ride that day..."

I said to myself, hmmm. I must have forgotten to make the Jane Savoie tape that into an audiobook file (first using Join Together and then Make Bookmarkable). Then I listened to it anyway and thought, good timing.

I first got Choose Your Future and That Winning Feeling when Hannah was starting out in agility. A lot of agility competitors at that time had a background in horses and I'm sure that's where the recommendation came from.

It was very interesting to listen to this segment of Jane's presentation. I think that it would be good to revisit some of her recommendations about language with some of my current goals. I need to float up those climbs on the bike, for instance.

Stuff for the new Mac in the house

DH's iMac arrived yesterday. That got me thinking about some of the programs that I really like on my Mac.

• Thunderbird and Firefox with the del.icio.us plugin. I've also been using TwitterFox but DH has not been converted to Twitter just yet. Greasemonkey plugins are good too.
  
• BusySync which I am now using to synchronize iCal with Google Calendar.
  
• Flip4Mac which allows Windows Media files to play on your Mac via QuickTime
  
• Lingon, basically a cron job scheduler. A GUI to launchd to be a bit more technical.
  
• AdiumX, an instant messaging client that integrates most IM protocols (yes, even Lotus Sametime).
• Parallels or VMWare Fusion, both allow you to run Windows on your Mac if you need to.
• MissingSync if you still love your Palm
  

Those are the big ones that come to mind. I'm sure that I've missed many utilities.

What Macintosh programs do you use?

Strawberries!

I love fresh local strawberries. Love them! DH kindly stopped at Jean's Berry Patch on the way home and picked some for us.

Nutrition frustrations and confustion

What does it mean when your nutritionist says that your situation is puzzling?

Hear is what happened. Three experts say that I am under eating. I agree that I should be able to eat more. Testing revealed that my resting metabolism rate was quite low. Solution, eat more. Your body is smart and will figure it out. Testing shows how many calories are burned at specific heart rates on the bike. That plus the RMR plus a little extra for not staying in bed all day equals the calories that I can eat. Good.

RMR + living + exercise = Allowed

On paper, this all makes sense, however, I gained weight pretty continuously on this even though I was an average of 250 calories or so under that amount. However, the rate that I gained corresponded with the amount extra that I was eating. I had been eating about 1200 calories per day on average. I changed to eating about 1850 calories per day.

(1850-1200) * 28 days = 18200
18200/3500 (one pound) = 5.2 pounds

And yes, that's very close to what I have gained.

Why would I be so special that time tested formulas wouldn't work?

We know from bloodwork that at 152 beats per minute on the bike I burn 9.2 calories per minute which works out to 552/hour. We know from testing what my RMR is, this was not a guess. Even if you give me 0 calories per day for not laying in bed, this still does not work out. What is going on here?

At the same time, I am further away from my weight and body fat targets than I was four weeks ago. Frustrating. Very frustrating.

Maybe four weeks isn't a very long time for my body to adjust?

I need to give myself better gifts.

Idiot Lights

About two weeks ago the Check Engine light came on in the Outback. The car was running fine and once before it came on because of the gas cap not being tightened enough -- DH didn't know that it had to go click-click-click.

I had filled up my Subaru Outback at a gas station near work that I don't usually use. It had Costco-like gas prices and I didn't have time to run over to Costco and I had no other Costco-related errands so I used this station. Either there was something with the pumps, which are in the running for the world's slowest gas pumps, or I didn't put the gas cap on tightly enough (doubtful, after 85,000 miles I think I can get that right) or it was just a thing...

I removed and tightened the gas cap and kept my fingers crossed that the light would go out within a tank or two of gas. The Outback has a March inspection date so I couldn't let it sit forever. DH offered to work from home and take care of the issue. He called the Subaru dealer and they said come in on Friday and we'll put it on the machine for $110. I suggested AutoZone since he didn't want to wait until Friday. I took his car to work and he took my car to AutoZone over lunch. On the way to work, the check engine light in his car came on. Yikes! Oh, it as 15% of oil life is left. Annoying but not problematic. (Note to self, if getting Honda Fit, make sure that they can turn that annoying thing off at the dealer. I can remember to change the oil by myself, thankyouverymuch. I really only want my car to tell me if there is a problem.)

AutoZone checked the Outback, determined that it was nothing and reset the computer for a whopping $0.00. Yes, for nothing. DH took the car across the street to the state inspection place and they couldn't read the car's computer. They did not charge him but said that he needed to drive the car around for a while to get everything to reboot. DH ran an errand and came back and the Outback now sports a spiffy March 2009 inspection sticker.

Kudos to AutoZone and the state inspection center for being so nice about everything.

A big thumbs down to Subaru for not being as nice.

Energy conservation, not in a good way

Eating. I'm not sure that I should blog about this or not. I hope that it helps someone else because I honestly thought that this was a myth and that I have been doing the right thing. Eating fiber and fruits and vegetables and lean protein in addition to 10-12 hours of exercise a week. I have not understood how other people can eat so much when I can eat so little.

The beginning seems like a good place to start.

In 2003 we got a puppy named Emma. People took pictures of me with Emma. I looked at the photos and said, "Who is that fat lady with my puppy?!" A few weeks later, we went hiking. I had problems hiking, more unflattering photos. Checked BMI. Holy Cow?! No way. Rechecked BMI. Got a program called BalanceLog and started to eat less and move more.

Fall 2003. The weight is pretty much gone. 80+ pounds of it. Woo hoo!

This is where the problem may have started. I may not have increased my calories enough when I moved to maintenance mode.

In 2005, I had an injury. My brain said moving less = eating less so I ate less. Again with the not increasing intake appropriately.

In 2006, I had a surgery. Moving less = eating less plus now there was a hormone change. I ate even less. Recovery from surgery was slow and I struggled. Would eating more have helped? Who knows.

2008, very sick of being hungry all the time. I am thinking, "I'm dong a metric century on the bike each weekend and I've done that before but it was mostly with supported rides, maybe I need to revisit this whole eating for long rides thing." I contacted a nutritionist and scheduled testing of my RMR. When I saw that my RMR was 720, I freaked out. It was not a pretty picture. I had expected it to be more like 1200. When I showed the results to my nutritionist, she said, "I don't understand this." The nutritionist and everyone else seem to think that I've managed to put myself into an energy conservation mode.

The good news is that the fix is most likely to gradually eat more. I welcome that. If someone is going to tell me to eat more, I'm not gonna argue! I hope that's the solution and that an visit to an endocrinologist is not in order.

I'm a bit surprised that with all that, no one had asked me what I eat until this week. Odd since I did have amenorrhea before my surgery. Odd since I actually told a medical authority that I wanted to "gnaw my arm off." Frustrating because I have been trying hard to do the right thing.

Smallville (or cookies in small batches)

DH and I were very happy to see the recent small batches posted on Cookie Madness. With just two of us, it's sometimes difficult to satisfy my desire to bake cookies and DH's desire to eat them without either of us looking like one of Knat's cows.

Tonight I made Outrageous Cookies. They batch makes only 10 cookies and that's great! They look wonderful and I'm hoping that they get come decent review from DH's office.

Why are they called outrageous. Hmmm. A 2 ounce bar of bittersweet chocolate and and 6 ounces of cut up flavored chocolate bar are in the 10 cookies! We had some two bars that I got on sale in the house so this batch contains one 3 ounce bar of Endangered Species 52% milk chocolate with almonds along with a less glamorous 3.5 ounce bar of Cocao Reserve 65% extra dark chocolate with cocao nibs in addition to the 2 ounce bar of Dagoba Organic New Moon 74% bittersweet chocolate purchased specifically for this recipe and melted into the batter. Chocolatey enough?

More car stuff

I've been thinking about my next car. On Saturday at the Frostbite bike ride I saw a Honda Fit with two bikes mounted on a roof rack. They had their from wheels ff which isn't exactly what I am looking for but I was both interested and excited to see a car that I am looking at an event that I'd like to take it to. I mentioned this siting to DH when I called him to let him know when I'd be home and he asked what kind of rack (Yakima). I had my camera with me so I took a picture to show him.

Yesterday, DH suggested that we swing by the Honda dealer to pick up literature on the Fit and the Element. The dealer was closed but we looked at both the Fit and the Element. The Fit seemed more me but I worry that I'd miss some of the good things about the Element (camping, bike inside). On the other hand, do you buy a car for the few times of the year that you go camping? Seriously, we could take two cars if that was an issue. In fact, in some ways that might be preferable since DH could go whitewater kayaking seperately.

Changing sentiment / Voldemort votes ???

I saw two interesting bumper stickers while I was at lunch today:

Voldemort votes Republican

The Patriot Act: Turning Citizens into Suspects Since 2001

This wouldn't be worth mentioning except until recently, the only thing that was seen around here were Bush-Cheney '04 stickers. There certainly seems to be a change in sentiment.

What's that I'm hearing?

One day last week when DH was working from home, he had a conference call. While on this call, he was using the speaker phone. Emma was sleeping in his office.

During the call, she started to dream and emitted some muffled barks. The microphone picked up the dog dream noises and DH's co-workers wondered what was going on.

Sunday's mix

Confession time: I missed my first outdoor ride of the year due to cold. I've missed ride due to rain this winter, but not cold. It was in the 20s and windy on Sunday morning and I was a bit nervous about ice left over from Saturday's "wintery mix." I bonded with the trainer instead. I set up the trainer in the bonus room and put on the TV, muted it and listened my iPod.

I have a SmartPlaylist set up on my iPod that grabs all of the songs with "spin" in the comments section. I shuffled that list and this is what it came up with:

• Money by Pink Floyd
• Black Rock by O.A.R.
• Is It Really So Strange? by The Smiths
• Papercut by Linkin Park
• Absolutely (Story Of A Girl) by Nine Days
• Same Man I Was Before by Oingo Boingo
• Smooth by Santana
• Busted by matchbox twenty Yourself
• Stumble by R.E.M
• B.J. Don't Cry by Moxy Früvous
• Pay the Man by The Offspring (silence at end snipped off)
• Girl Like That by matchbox twenty
• Life Of Saturdays by Dexter Freebish
• Fire Escape by Fastball
• Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana Nirvana
• Land Of Confusion by Disturbed
• I Want You (She's So Heavy) by The Beatles
• Hard to Handle by The Black Crowes
• Headstong by Trapt
• Thinking of You by Lenny Kravitz

Batter bread

I baked bread yesterday afternoon, as I do many Sunday afternoons during the winter. We decided to use a one loaf recipe that I have had for about forever. I first made this bread in about 1991. It's hard to believe that I've been making this recipe for so long.

I received this cookbook for Christmas either my junior or senior year of college after saying that I had a hard time cooking much because everything seemed to take so many ingredients. The kitchen in my apartment was tiny and we had no spices or anything. We had salt and pepper but that was about it. I didn't start using this recipe until after graduation, though. I was attracted to it because the kitchen in my first place in Raleigh -- Cumberland Cove -- had most of the counter space devoted to a bar area. That meant no place to knead bread.

Easy Batter Bread

1 package dry yeast
1 1/4 cups water (105° to 115°F)
3 tablespoons honey
2 teaspoons butter
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups bread flour

Combine yeast, water and honey in a small bowl; stir slightly. Let stand until doubled in size, about 10 minutes.

In a large bowl, combine yeast mixture, butter, salt and 2 cups of flour. If using a mixer, beat on low speed until blended. Beat at medium speed for about 1 minutes. Stir in remaining flour with wooden spoon. Cover and let rise in a warm place, about 1 hour or until doubled in size.
Sir batter down spoon into greased 9x5-inch loaf pan. Cover and let rise in a warm place, about 45 minutes or until doubled in size.

Bake at 375°F for 35 to 45 minutes or until browned and bread sounds hollow when tapped. Remove from pan and cool on rack. Makes 1 loaf.

Recipe Source: Six Ingredients or Less by Carlean Johnson

While the bread was doing it's thing, I made a big batch of marinara and made stuffed shells. Yum!

A new car on the (distant) horizon

A new car is on the distant horizon. The Outback has been with me since 10/2002 -- just over 62 months -- and has about 80,500 miles on it for an average of 1300 miles per month or roughly 16,000 per year. I'd like to get at least 100,000 miles on the Outback but there's an issue of spacing between DH's car and mine and he feels that if we don't replace mine soon, he'll have to wait too long to get his next car. Basically, I think that DH just wants a new car sooner!

I haven't test driven anything. The whole new car purchase deal is a ways off. I'm just starting to notice what models are out and think about what I might be interested in driving in the future.

What I want in a car

• reliable
  
• good mileage
  
• ability to haul bikes, prefer to use rack attached to trailer hitch
  
• ability to haul dogs
• good for camping
  
• ability to haul kayaks (there's some give and take here)
• cute (or at least not ugly)
• manual transmission?
  

What's in the running

• Honda Element
• Subaru Outback or maybe Forester
• Honda Fit Sport
  

Yesterday, I was at a group ride. Afterward, I noticed that one of the other riders had arrived in an Element. I asked him about it and he said that he loved it. I've talked to a few other Element owners and they all had good things to say about it. I feel that in my heart, that's what I really want.

The practical side of me forced me to break down some costs associated with car ownership.

• Honda Element
• EPA estimated combined mileage of 20 mpg
  
• 4WD available
• 1500 towing capacity
  
• about $20,000
  
• The Subarus
• 19 city, 26 highway for Outback and similar for Forester
  
• AWD
  
• 2700 towing capacity (2400 for Forester)
  
• The Outback and Forester both run about $22,000
• Honda Fit for Fit Sport
  
• EPA estimated combined mileage of 31 mpg
• 2WD
  
• towing not recommended, can you get a trailer hitch for bikes?
• about $15,000
  

So, if I drove drove the Element for six years with my current driving habit of 16,000 miles per year and gas cost $4/gallon during those six years, it would cost me $19,200. Based on my current Outback and lacking the EPA estimated combined mileage from Subaru, I think that the Outback and Forester would be similar in their fuel usage

• 16,000 miles * 6 years = 96,000 miles / 20 mpg = 4800 gallons of gas * $4 = $19,200

The Fit is less thirsty and I calculate a six year fuel cost of $6,800 less than the other models

• 16,000 miles * 6 years = 96,000 miles / 31 mpg = 3100 gallons of gas * $4 = $12,400

Of course, if gas were $3.50/gallon, the difference in cost is smaller but with an additional 1700 gallons of gas being used, it's never going to be the same.

Today, I was on another group ride. We passed a Honda Fit Sport in Milano red. It was kind of cute...

Water woes (and other regional problems)

I live near Raleigh, NC and there are some serious water woes in the area. The Triangle is a great place to live but, like anywhere, it has it's strengths and weakness. Regional planning is one of the area's weakness and right now, water tops my list.

Raleigh has just over 90 days of water in its reservoir, Falls Lake, and Durham has gone to a backup reservoir. River flows have been changed and other measures are being taken. Raleigh provides water to Garner and Rolesville and sells water to Fuquay-Varina, Holly Springs, Knightdale, Wendell and Zebulon.

This has lead to talk of other areas in the region -- Jordan Lake with serves Cary and Apex as well as Morrisville, RDU and southern RTP -- sending water to Raleigh. I live in that area. Of course I'm happy to share water with our neighbors. What mean-spirited person wouldn't share water, for goodness sake?!

I do have some issues with the way that region has managed growth. Why are they still approving new houses when they have no water?

Then there is the issue that some parts of the region have benefited more than others. Raleigh and points north have a new freeway. The part that will come to the very region that they want water from, is slated to be a toll road, not a freeway. If they insist on building the road, it should be equal for all -- not a toll road in part of the region and freeway in the others.

Regional planning is needed for and not just for water but also transportation, parks, education... I hope that this is temporary growing pains and not a personality defect.

Dealing with bureaucracy at the DMV

I went to DMV to renew my driver's license this week and was told I needed to my social security number straight -- I had a post-9/11 "SSN Mismatch" error thrown by the DMV computer. I was shocked by this because this is not my first encounter with the NC DMV since REAL ID. DMV employee handed me a paper with the directions to the Social Security office -- and the Mexican Consulate on it! Apparently this is a common double trip.

When DH and I got married nearly (gulp) fifteen years ago and I changed my name, I went through a lot of grief because I was born in outside of the United States. I gave the social security folks my birth certificate, social security card and marriage certificate and they said, "You're not American." I had to produce all sorts of other paperwork (so sorry that my dad is a US Veteran and was Serving His Country when I was born. hate to inconvenience you.) I kind of mentally freaked out for a while and went to social security and waited Over An Hour to find out that Nothing is Wrong. I went back to DMV... with additional paperwork to try to convince them that I'm not someone that Homeland Security -- motto: Preserving our Freedoms, Protecting America -- needs to worry about.

I managed to bring enough paperwork this time and they let me renew until 2015 or some such.

BTW, the DMV had a typo and that was the root cause of the mess.

Ah, the joys of dealing with bureaucracy.

Things that I don't like about Christmas

When I mentioned my Top Ten post to DH, he said, can I make a list of things that I don't like about Christmas? I said sure and the first thing that he said was shopping. I actually like that part so I won't list it here!

Things that I don't like about the holidays

• Ba Humbug types
• The commercials. Hint: You wouldn't need the milk of magnesia if you controlled your eating. Oh, and I hope that you weren't expecting a new car for Christmas either. The Lexus one is is particularly annoying. And the Zales and Jared jewelery ones. Ah well, I guess that's why we have a DVR.
  
• Holiday Creep - Can you please please wait until December to send me cards! Can you please wait until at least Halloween before sending me catalogs? Please.
  
• New Year's Eve - I think that New Year's Eve is a fake holiday. I've never been much into the drinking thing and the idea of a bunch of drunks celebrating midnight by watching something drop from the sky and then getting in their cars to drive home turns me off. Is it just me or is the entire purpose of the holiday to get drunk and then wear funny hats? At this point we've already given thanks and celebrated friend and family. I've tried to go out for dinner that night but that doesn't work well either. For the past several years, we've had Carolina Hurricanes tickets and that kind of works for me. New Year's Eve just seems to be a big disappointment. Maybe it's holiday letdown already.
• Commercialism. I do think that they holidays are getting more and more commercial and becoming less and less about friends and family and traditions. People are buying holiday treats instead of baking them and so on. I know that this is not a new phenomena. Heck it's lamented in A Charlie Brown Christmas which was made before I was born.