Thanksgiving 2008

This year's Thanksgiving day was expected to be different. I wasn't just that Mom had passed away last month. That was weighing heavily in the background of everyone's thoughts. It was going to be different because we were doing a neighborhood dinner this year. Several families splitting up the cooking duties and gathering say around 5-ish to eat.

While the day went somewhat as expected, overall it was a good one to remember. The best part of the day had to be playing football pass and catch with the neighborhood kids. There's something that's ingrained in American psychi to watch, throw or play football on Thanksgiving. My arm and shoulder are sore, real sore this morning. The other good part was watching UT dominate A&M. The worst part was not having Mom there to be with us. The other bad part was when we all sat down to eat, a couple who had already eaten elsewhere lit up a couple cigs and hovered within breathing distance. I was about to say something but didn't. The energy at that moment would've changed more than if I kept quiet and bit my tongue.

The kids all had a blast playing football into the evening. One of the teenagers showed me how Daunte Culpepper holds the ball to pass. It looked and felt awkward with the pointer finger on the tip of the football but it worked. Perfect spirals. It felt weird and looked weird but it worked. I threw until I couldn't throw any more balls and knowing my arm was going to be a wreck the next morning.

I sign of aging is the need for me to warm up my arm to throw even the first ball 15 feet. I tried to suck it up and get the ball there with some pain but dang. The littlest ones were chunking the pigskin with no problem and here I was swinging my arm around trying to get it loose enough to throw a decent ball. Next time I might have to say I'll meet them out there in about 15 minutes so I can excuse myself to the bedroom to do my warmup exercises. Or I could make the argument Oakland A's Barry Zito incorporates an elaborate warmup before throwing a single pitch and that I'm following that program. That sounds pretty lame now that I think about it. I think knowing I'll be throwing the football that day I should exercise before all the baking starts and everything will take care of itself.

The food came out pretty good. While the house had smells throughout the day,it was the same as more of what we did was the baking. I missed the other smells. It was good to try it out the neighborhood feast as I'm sure the first Thanksgiving was something similar. Next year I think we'll be in a cabin somewhere near a lake or stream for fishing with a football to practice the Duante Culpepper grip.

Sea Change in Medicine

"Convincing tradition-bound medicine to think this way—to look for dread diseases in advance rather than react to them after they are manifest—is a gargantuan task. 'I think it's going to happen, but only if we have the tools that make it inevitable,' says Hood." -- Finding Cancer in a Drop of Blood by David Ewing Duncan |

Meltdown Part I

"In Bakersfield, Calif., a Mexican strawberry picker with an income of $14,000 and no English was lent every penny he needed to buy a house for $720,000." -- NYTimes article, All Fall Down By Thomas L. Friedman

Organic Produce..Which Ones? All?

Not so fast. The Environmental Working Group suggests using the following while shopping.

Choose organic foods for those products that typically have high pesticide residues, like apples, bell peppers, celery and strawberries. But for commercially-farmed products that have low pesticide levels, like avocados, onions and pineapples, you can save money by buying nonorganic varieties.

Here's a link from them to the wallet guide for organic produce, based on how much pesticide is found in each fruit or vegetable.

Ice

I credit ice with getting my foot back in order. The month of no running helped quite a bit but the ice really did the trick. It's that "reactive vasodilation" thing.

I got a full massage this morning. There's nothing like it. I felt so relaxed throughout the day. As part of anyone's anger management program they should be subjected to massage. There's no point in argument after a good massage. Maybe there's a point to it but I couldn't manage to generate the mental energy required to put up a debate.

I was a little disappointed in the NYTimes blog entry "News Keeps Getting Worse for Vitamins." It didn't address Vitamin D properly or glucosamine or CoQ10. I have a feeling people will take to heart the headline and not read between the lines or the fine print of the article. The article and the research didn't appear to address the type of vitamin, i.e. powder, capsule, tablet or other. It would seem that powder would absorb faster than a hard tablet.

This may have been the best part of the article.

"The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews looked at vitamin C studies for treating colds. Among more than two dozen studies, there was no overall benefit for preventing colds, although the vitamin was linked with a 50 percent reduction in colds among people who engaged in extreme activities, such as marathon runners, skiers and soldiers, who were exposed to significant cold or physical stress. The data also suggested vitamin C use was linked with less severe and slightly shorter colds."

"Many readers of the Well blog say the problem is not the vitamin but poorly designed studies that use the wrong type of vitamin, setting the vitamin up to fail." Amen brother.

An article that points to how Vitamin E is taken makes all the difference.

Legs

The legs feel great after letting them rest for a month. Although certain parts of the quads are a little sore from not being run on, it does feel like I have new springs in there is the best way I can communicate it. Instead of trudging, it feels like running. I think I need to take a month off of running yearly and do it when it's as hot as Hades (August). As I'm gearing up to change over to Xterra or cyclocross this may be perfect. Then I can won't miss any of the cool weather running.

Two Years in the Making

I've only been contemplating this move for two years. I moved over to a free hosted site, thinking I'd need some MySQL on the backend but it didn't materialize. So now both the Bits vs Atoms blog and the Body Atoms blog will now point to here and this blog will incorporate the technology from BvA and the fitness from the BA blog.