Cerebrate Good Times

Allison has a few videos she likes to watch (yes, we like to start their education early), one of which is the old Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. At first, I thought it had some interesting similarities to Disney's The Lion King , what with Rudolph running away to grow up, then return triumphant. But at any rate, there are some interesting lessons we can learn from the story: 1. If your children are born different, make sure you change them so they fit in. 2. Running away from your problems is a perfectly acceptable way of dealing with them. 3. If you don't fit in, you're worthless. 4. If someone bullies you, it's only fair to pull out all their teeth and turn them into a slave. That's the great thing about older shows. They always have a message to share.

Beware: This post is double boring, because it is about running and math. Fairly warned be thee, says I. On average, the human heart can give you about 2.5 billion beats over the course of a lifetime, and then it kind of wears out. So what I always sort of wondered in the back of my mind was, why does exercise allow you to live longer if your heart is just beating more? Isn’t it just wearing out sooner? (Disclaimer: obviously exercise gives you other health benefits that keep you alive longer.) This question that I never really consciously considered was inadvertently answered in the doctor’s office last week. My resting heart rate was down to 40 beats per minute. According to the American Heart Association, the average is 60 to 80. So I decided to break out the old calculator. I determined that At 60 bpm, the average person’s heart beats 31.5 million times per year. Then I added up my year at 40 bpm, then added the extra beats for the number of hours I spend running, when it would be ...

This morning we went up Millcreek Canyon for breakfast with my family. It was a nice morning, aside from the fact that the entire canyon has apparently been taken over by little caterpillars. They left all these presents on our car: Enlarge the photo. Go on, do it. Those black dots are all caterpillar poop. There was so much that I'm sure we had a little supplementary nutrition in our food. Yum!

Step one: Eat chocolate cereal for breakfast.

Well, blog posts have been few and far between lately, as we prepare for closing on the house and moving. So here's a pointless story from my youth. When I was in elementary school, my dad did some side advertising work with the local grocery chain Dan's. One thing they did was take food around and have kids sample it, and then publish quotes from the kids in the ads. One day they were coming to my class for the sampling. Proud that my dad worked for them, I wore my Dan's t-shirt that day. At lunch I was playing out in the field, and I fell into some mud. My mom had to bring me new clothes, so when the people from the store came I didn't get to show off my shirt. I was devastated. But I got my quote in the ad.

I always forget to post the link for What's for Lunch Wednesday over at Rob's blog. This week, we went to the BYU Cougareat.

I leave for work at 7 in the morning. It’s not exactly the middle of the night, but it’s not lunchtime either, and I find it puzzling that I see so many people in their cars talking on the phone that early. First of all, I’m pretty sure that 98% of human conversation could be eliminated with little or no effect on the world, but that’s a discussion for another time. What I wonder is, how much could you have to say to someone first thing in the morning? Now, I really am more of a morning person than a night person. I will get up early to go running, or fishing, or to take the garbage cans out when I hear the truck coming. So I’m not like some bleary-eyed grump when I wake up. But I don’t really feel like talking a whole lot that early. There’s something about silence in the morning that makes the whole day go more smoothly. Do you like to talk on the phone early in the morning?

Can I just say that Sam and I built the best fort ever tonight? Yes. Yes, I can. It stretched all along the back of the couch and the recliner next to it. He's watching Bugs Bunny cartoons on a little DVD player. Luxury! When I was a kid, I once made a fort by lining the inside of a table's legs with foam mattresses. We had a little old black-and-white TV I brought in there, and I remember sitting in there and eating saltines for some reason. Compared to that, this thing is a palace.

Okay, so I assumed it was just a stupid cold. After feeling really sick last Tuesday and Wednesday, I felt a little better on Thursday and Friday. But then I just kept feeling like my throat was being punched, and my head was a pressure cooker full of mucus (sorry about that). By Saturday I could barely speak, and by Monday I realized that I had had a fever for a full week. So, having been miserable the whole Memorial Day weekend, I finally saw a doctor on Tuesday, who confirmed that in addition to the cold I had strep. And a wicked horrible cough. Anyway, I'm mostly recovered now. And here's something that makes me feel even better: Four weeks from today we should be moving in, if all goes according to plan. (Does it ever?) You're all invited to totally help us move come visit.