Soccer Food

Soccer is kind of weird. Or maybe it's me playing soccer that is weird. Some days, I can't run at all. Some days, I have a remarkable amount of energy. Today, for instance, I ran quite well the second half. I'm convinced it has to do with what I eat. So, in an effort to analyze this trend, I decided to analyze my soccer fuel.

* Raisin Nut Bran
* 1 cookie
* 1 cup of coffee
* 1 cup of tea
* 32 oz. water
* Pop-Tart
* 6" Subway club on 9-grain wheat
* Cherry Coke Zero
* Twix
* Powerade

Now, maybe next week I can repeat this. We'll see...

I know that this isn't even remotely interesting to anybody, but I needed somewhere to record it.

Random Daily Thoughts

"Penelope is a funny name. Every time I read or hear it, I think 'pen-a-lope.'"

Why do people leave messages at the wrong numbers? Don't they listen to the messages? Can't they hear, "Hi. This is the persons with a different name that you didn't call but that you reached anyway. Leave a message at the beep?" I don't get it.

Don't Panic

It's amazing that nobody thought of it earlier. Or maybe somebody did (probably), but I never ran across it, and it probably wasn't free.

The application is called HearPlanet Free, and it is a tour guide application for iPhone. What more do you need to know? Go somewhere, download tour content, and hear what you should do. I think that's pretty cool.

I have only one condition. It has to say "Don't Panic" somewhere within.

Random Daily Thoughts: Introduction

Pretty much every day I think something very strange. I decided today that'd I start recording them and writing them down. I'm not sure why. Some of them are funny. Some of them could drive a crazy person sane. Some of them might cause birds to explode spontaneously. I never know.

So, today's random thought:
- If you were going to start a direct competitor to Super Fresh, would you call it Ultra Fresh? I mean, isn't that immediately better?

Differential Brewing

I'm not very good with subtlety; particularly when it comes to flavors. I can tell when something tastes different, but I can't necessarily identify why. If I could tell the difference in recipes with something other than the food analog to a sledge hammer, I'd be a much better cook. It would mean I'd be able to make Frankenfood. I could just mash the right ingredients together and rock the tasty buds. I envy Karina for this. She's very experimental in cooking, and it always tastes good.

I think I'd be good with differential cooking. If I could line up multiple, slightly different meals next to one another and eat them sequentially, I might learn something. I don't think this would work, though, because I don't think I ever want to eat three meals simultaneously, even though this is probably what happens whenever I eat Chipotle or Chinese takeout, or pretty much sit down at any restaurant. Even though trying to eat multiple meals to satisfy my scientific curiosity won't work terribly well, it doesn't mean that I can't apply this concept in other arenas. Amanda and I discussed this last night with beer. We're apparently both particularly fond of reds. The experiment lives! When things settle down, we're going to experiment with beer ingredients. After all, who can't drink multiple beers in a night? It's always a win when alcoholic beverages get to satisfy scientific and experimental tendencies.

The experiment! Batch one will be the control group. Batch two will be the group with the grains varied. Batch three will be the batch with the hops varied. The beauty of it is that drinking three beers can be nice, and should give us some insight into the psychology of beer. Time to put some beer on a sofa and pick it apart...

Everyday Things

Sometimes it's remarkable what those among us in the world can create. Sometimes it's also remarkable what has yet to be created. I look around and see what we've been able to do as species. I looked at a car on the road today and saw the subtle nuances in just the exterior metal, just the things that make one every car look different from the next. I thought about how that piece of metal had to have a history, had to be designed, had to go to a factory to be formed, and had to be just right to be put on the car. I thought about how every car is just so different, but has a history similar to the next.

I then thought about how, despite the fact that we've been able to create such things, we have not been able to do some things that I thought would be natural by now; some things that seem obvious. For instance, creating a car capable of obtaining greater than 30 mpg on average but still have decent power. Once we make a breakthrough, we're stuck. The corporate world then prevents that breakthrough from evolving.

The world can be such a phenomenal place and such a depressing one all at once. I'm sitting with my laptop, connecting with many friends wirelessly. I'm drinking a beverage we've known how to make for hundreds of years. I'm imagining what the future holds. I'm remembering what the world was like before cell phones.

It's all so amazing. Sometimes it's really not, though. I guess every person goes through experiences that gives him a subset of the "real world view." I just hope yours is the most amazing one.

Couldn't We Just Win The Lottery Instead?

This friggin' blows. This page says that MTHFR deficiency, which I'm convinced is the reason that we are in a world of hurt right now, occurs in only about 200,000 people in the US. The girl has it.

I'm not going to ask what comes next, because I'm actually afraid somebody or something will show me, and I'm afraid it'll just get worse.

Well, Gosh, Sort of a Lot Has Happened...

I feel like I haven't blogged in a bazillion years. The reason is that, in the spirit of "kick him while he's down," life has been a little cruel of late. After New Years, we've both been messes on and off. The last week or so, I've been under a remarkable amount of stress. I've been struck by the friggin' plague, I've been trying (and failing) to work really hard, and now there's a new wrinkle.

The Girl has a fibroid. The doctors say "take it out" (surgically). She's nervous. I'm nervous. I think, though, that if she decides to do it, it will ultimately be OK. She also has MTHFR (pronounced to me "motherfucker"). I mean, why not pronounce it how it looks? It's not good. Genetic to boot, too. Might as well call it what it is. That particular malady is bad. I personally think it's to blame, but there is no way to prove that.

I was down, I was bruised, and now I keep getting kicked and I think maybe a rib is broken, metaphorically speaking. I don't want to ask "what next?" because I'm afraid then something will actually be next. We don't want something to be next. We just want to escape the rest of the first half of this year relatively unscathed. Even the most optimistic part of me can't seem to believe that, though...

Apple, Safari, and Keyword Searches

One of the things I've gotten used to in browser-land is the ability to do keyword searches in a browser's address field. For instance, opening Firefox and typing g XKCD would search Google for XKCD. I know every browser by now has a little search bar right next to the address bar, but this is just something that makes my life a bit faster, and I've grown used to it.

For some reason, though, Apple has decided not to include this capability in Safari. Firefox has it natively. Opera has it natively. I don't know about Chrome. Safari does not.

Now, I recently got back into Safari after Apple released the beta of Safari 4. I downloaded it. It's nice. I could get used to using it, but first I had to solve the keyword search problem for it to be a browser I could use.

After much searching of the Tubes, I came across GLIMS. This is special in that it actually worked with the Safari 4 beta immediately; no waiting for the software community to catch up. It made me happy.

So, if you, like me, require keyword searches, go pick it up.

Vermont, Part 3: The Tiredness

It's amazing. Apparently, the height of the mountain plays a significant part in determining which body parts feel like they're going to fall off the next day. Both arms and legs are major contenders. However, the winner, shockingly, was my head. All mental jokes aside, it's felt like it was going to explode out through my eyes all day. Not a good feeling. Much more sleep in the car on the way home later, I felt better.

On the way back from Vermont, the major event was that we missed the EMS and snowboarding shop in Paramus, NY, and just kept thinking we'd see them. We didn't realize they were in Paramus, so we kept hoping. Hope turned to despair when we reached I-95 in New Jersey, though. At that point, we just felt like we needed to eat or we'd expire from hunger.

All-in-all, though, the trip back was OK (except for the headache), and the ride was not bad. Definitely the way to go if you plan to go up to New England and don't want to take the three hours going through New York during rush hour. That's just a major nightmare.

Anyway, we're back, and I got to snowboard for one day in powder up to depths of two feet. It was exciting, and now I know where there's a condo I can rent to get a bunch of boarders on vacation.

:-) Out...