Dr. Forbush Thinks

When I made the transition from the University world to the Industrial world I was introduced to the concept of the “trade show.” The idea with a trade show is to gather the key players in your industry or area and sell each other your products. In academia there is a similar concept called the conference. An academic conference does the same thing as a trade show in that it gathers all the key players into one location. However, the academic conference is based on the premise that everyone is sharing their ideas. The truth of the matter here is that at an academic conference everyone is “selling” their ideas.

Human nature works the same in both the academic and industrial worlds. People like what they are used to using. They would like to continue to do what they are used to doing with the exception that they might like to do it a little faster and a little more efficiently. Most people are not willing to jump on the band wagon of any new technology without proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that the new way is worth the trouble of changing.

When I joined EDC we had a monopoly on the equipment that we made. The premise of sticking with what you know worked very well for our company. When the occasional player tried to break into the market we could easily introduce something into our product to compete with any potential advantage that might challenge us. Customers tended to stick with what they already knew - namely our product.

With the success of our company we made several attempts to expand our business. In order to expand we needed to create a new product using a new technology. In doing so we normally ran into the problem of coming up against established products and trying to overcome that inertia from the other side. In one case we came up with several improvements on the existing technology in the semiconductor industry. However, breaking into the semiconductor industry proved to be extremely difficult and we fell back on plan B, sell the technology to someone already established in the semiconductor industry.

The point of all this introduction is meant to establish the need for trade shows and conferences. When you get together with people in the field conversations begin and mature. Walking the trade show educates and informs. Trade shows bring customers to venders, but it also brings people and ideas together.

As we developed our biotech equipment we needed a way to get our product out into the public. To us it seemed liked people would just “need” our equipment once they saw what it could do. How could anyone prefer the “old” technology when we had this “new” technology that was so much better? The answer of course was that the old technology worked adequately for most applications being done at the time and the potential customers weren’t so sure about the new technology. Most people were unprepared to look a couple of years down the road to the new applications, mainly because they hadn’t been thought of yet.

Our job was to show potential customers how wonderful our product is. This had to be done with the standard tests that our customers use to verify that their current equipment works. In other words, in order to break into an existing market we needed to make our equipment do the same job that the current equipment was doing. People weren’t prepared to redesign everything and put our equipment into the new setup. And, the best place to learn what the current customers think about “new” equipment is a trade show.

In the biotech industry trade shows and conferences are merged into one thing. There are talks and presentations as well as booths for people in “the industry.” This means that you need to make your point academically as well as economically. A new technology needs to pass “peer review.” In other words, your product will only be accepted if the majority of the people in the community agree that the technology is worthy. And so, even though scientists don’t like to admit it - social relationships play a role in the industry.

Well, EDC BioSystems first presented our technology at this trade show about five years ago. And, over those five years we have presented our argument to the community every year since. And, slowly the community has warmed to acoustic dispensing and EDC BioSystems as a company. Hence, every year in this decade I have made that trip to the desert, either for learning about the industry or for presenting our equipment. And, always to build those important business relationships.

This year the conference/trade show was held on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. I flew in Sunday and left Tuesday afternoon. There are certain rituals that have been established over the years of attending trade shows. One of those rituals is the “business dinner.” Other rituals are “walking the show,” “working the booth,” “scoping the competition,” “meeting and greeting old friends,” “reading the posters,” and “finding the golden nugget.”

These rituals have gradually evolved by trial and error. The rituals need not be performed in any specific order, although they all do need to be done during the show. Some are performed throughout the duration of the show, while others are done once and abandoned. Each of these rituals have social interactions involved and the rituals foster social relationships.

With all of these rituals to follow there is hardly any time to do anything on your own. Well, there is one personal ritual that I have begun in recent years. I get up early and go for a run. I did this for the first time three years ago. Of course whenever one is in a strange city it isn’t that easy to know the best places to run. So, on my first trip I just took off running down the street at 5:30 in the morning. This first run wasn’t an ideal run, mainly because I ran out into the desert before the sun had risen. It was dark and I had no idea where I should go. I had looked at a map before hand, and it seemed that I had a good trail to follow, but there weren’t any sidewalks and it was bloody dark. Well, on subsequent runs I found better and better places to run. And, I gradually began my run a bit later so that I could run as the sun came up over the desert. This is how these rituals evolve.

This year I did the same thing. I woke up and began my run at 7:00 AM. I thought that I might try something a little different. On the last day of the show last year I found out that there were trails on the mountains that surround Palm Springs. These steep rock piles that surround Palm Springs shoot up about 3000 feet into the sky and influence the desert climate that has people returning year after year. These naked rock piles have very little vegetation because of the lack of rainfall and consistent 100+ degrees weather most of the year. In the winter the weather is much more hospitable. At 6:30 AM I took off toward the mountain to the west of the city. The base of the mountain was about a mile from my hotel, but I had no idea where the paths began. I thought that I might just run along the foot of the mountain and discover where the path might begin.

As I ran the mile toward the base of the mountain I saw a fellow runner heading in the same direction. Then I saw a couple of runners running in the opposite direction. I sensed that I might be going the right way. As followed the runner ahead of me I saw him scramble up to a road that ran along the base of the mountain but at about 10 or 15 feet up the side of the mountain. I followed him up to the road, and then up further to a sandy path that seamed to climb further up the side of the mountain. I followed him as he ran up the side of the mountain. Running up hill requires a bit more effort than running on flat ground, but if one slows down one, then one can still find a good pace based on effort. Of course the guy that I began to follow was faster than I was, so he was soon out of sight somewhere ahead of me on the path.

I continued to follow the path up the mountain. I traveled at a good pace, breathing heavy on the steepest sections of the path. As I climbed I saw a beautiful city stretched out before me. As I climbed I saw that the trail was actually marked with little spots of white paint on rocks. After about 25 minutes I emerged at the top of this small mountain. It was the first foothill, with taller ones directly behind it. I estimated that I had climbed about 1500 feet and to my surprise there were six very sturdy picnic tables placed at the top of this climb. Just as I emerged I saw the runner that I had followed up the mountain. For the first time I noticed that he was about ten years older than I am. He complimented me on being in “good” shape. He said that he was Swiss, so of course he was used to doing this. Then he took off running back down the mountain.

Been there, done that! I circled the picnic tables and then I also took off running back down the mountain, and back to my hotel. The total round trip was about 55 minutes - a good workout for the day.

The next day I decided to do the same run, but I thought that I might explore the top of the mountain a bit before a returned down again. I also decided to leave a few minutes earlier in order to catch the sunrise over the city as I climbed the mountain. And, I discovered a loop that ran around the mountaintop. And, on the way down I ran into the same guy I had followed up the mountain the day before. I had realized that he was also in town to go to the same trade show. Finally as I was running down the mountain I passed another runner who asked me if I knew how to find another path that lead to the south end of Palm Springs. That was the first that I had heard of it. But I guess next year I will look for it as this running ritual continues to evolve.

In the end Man vs. Nature is the ultimate conflict that we all end up losing. This is because nature is the environment that we all live in. Nature encompasses everything we know. Other men, society, and ourselves can all be reduced to nature itself because all of these are products of nature. In literature when we explore one of these so-called non-nature conflicts we are only peeling off one subgroup of conflict in order to examine it more closely.

Man is always in a battle against nature. This was obvious in ancient civilizations when every danger lie just outside the campfire circle. But, even today the diseases that we fight - be they bacterial, viral or even cancerous - they come from nature in various ways to damage our bodies and age them little by little. Even oxygen and the sun age our bodies little by little. Nature eats away at us every day and no matter how we fight it - we will ultimately loose that final conflict.

We don’t like to think about this fact of life. But, every once in a while death comes a little closer than we might like. Yesterday was one of those days for me.

Yesterday I took on nature by choice. Like I did last year I chose to swim from Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay to San Francisco. The famous island lies about 1.25 miles north of San Francisco in the cold bay waters normally between 55 and 63 degrees Fahrenheit. In these waters hypothermia is a real threat, but swimming hard for less than an hour will generate enough heat for most people to counter this problem. I survived this swim last year with some major chills and shivering, but nothing life threatening. I can normally swim a mile in about 25 minutes - 30 minutes would be a lazy pace. So, I wasn’t very worried about this swim at all.

But, nature doesn’t always cooperate.

About 650 people joined me on a one-way cruise out to Alcatraz. I had no fear, because I had done this before. But, looking back on this short trip out to the island there was some foreshadowing. I began to talk to some of the experienced swimmers. Last year I worried about everything, where to site, how to pace myself. This year I made the sophomore mistake of throwing worry to the wind. Of course most of the swimmers wore wetsuits. I didn’t wear one last year, why would I need one this year?

I met a few guys who also chose to swim “naked” as they call it. Two of them worked out every day swimming in the Aquatic Park. Another guy told me that this was his twentieth crossing. I asked him if there was anything that he had learned from all of his experience. He told me, that the most important thing was that every crossing was different. And that sentiment is still bouncing around in my head today.

As we traveled across the bay, the boat was being tossed around. Someone noted that there were whitecaps on the waves. And, another guy said, “This is going to be challenging.” I began to wonder what he meant by challenging.

Last year it took me 40 minutes to swim this short distance, mainly because I needed to occasionally stop and look around. I was also slow off the boat, which I believe added to my official swim time. This year I was quick to get toward the front of the line. I wanted to get started. Why wait? I jumped into the water, pushing the button on my watch in order to get the perfect boat to beach time.

I swam ahead away from the boat, following the crowd of swimmers that had jumped before me. Like most swimmers, freestyle means front crawl, the easiest and most efficient swimming stroke. I saw the swimmers in front of me and I kept up with them as we began to swim for the shore. Then a large wave hit me. I got my breath, but the wave slammed me into the water hard. I stopped for a second, picked my head up, and swam a few strokes of breaststroke. With my head above the water I could see the waves coming, but of course my progress was much slower. I put my head back in the water and continued on with my front crawl. I was hit by waves again and again. I was slammed into the water again and again. This was different from anything I had experienced before. Then a wave hit me in the face and I sucked in water. I coughed and gagged. I picked my head up and once again began breast stroking toward the shore.
Well, I tried to swim front crawl a few more times, but the waves were killing me. One well-placed wave just might drown me. The safest thing to do had to be breaststroke, but I didn’t do just regular breaststroke, I swam breaststroke with my head up. This was slow and steady, but at least I wouldn’t be drowned by those stupid waves. This was obviously “real” open water swimming. I saw other swimmers around me. One person had their hand up signaling a boat. The boat was a few feet away. They had told us if we needed any help that we should signal the boats that would be along the course.

The waves must have been about three feet high. This might not seem like much, but it was just enough to get you high enough that I could survey the swimmers around me. I felt better knowing that there were other swimmers around me. Last year I felt like I was alone in the sea. I couldn’t see anyone around me until I got pretty close to the finish line. This year I could see heads bobbing all around me. I felt pretty good that I wasn’t alone. But, people were passing me as I did breaststroke, and somehow these people were able to swim front crawl in all of these waves. I imagined that I must be like a runner that grew up in Kansas running quite well on all the flat roads that run around the cornfields. Suddenly I was placed in the Rocky Mountains and told to run a 10K. I’d be dying on every up hill, and trying to slow myself down on every downhill. Obviously I wasn’t prepared for this swim.

I stubbornly pushed myself forward. Breaststroke wasn’t fast, but the swim wasn’t only about winning a race. There wasn’t much chance that I was actually going to win the race. This was Man against Nature now, and I was going to win this battle. This swim started out an idea that I would beat my time from last year. And, this time I was going to run after the swim was over. The race was actually to swim from Alcatraz, then run seven miles over the Golden Gate Bridge and back again. It certainly didn’t sound impossible when I started, but it sure was taking me a long time to get to the beach.

Nature, being what it is, isn’t about just one thing. Nature in the traditional sense is about aggressive wild animals, storms, lightening, volcanoes, mountains and more. And, nature in my case wasn’t just about nauseating waves. It was also about the cold water. Putting two things together, the lack of a wetsuit and the much slower pace that I was making due to the waves I was beginning to take quite some time to make this crossing. Occasionally I would panic a bit and begin to push myself a little harder. This was not necessarily the best strategy. I was already doing my best to fight the waves, did I really need to fight the exhaustion. Wait a minute, swimming at the pace I was with my head up avoiding the waves was already exhausting me. The extra time that this swim was taking was already exhausting me. And, the cold water was exhausting me.

I was thinking to myself that I was certainly in better shape this year than I was last year. What would have happened if I had to battle these same waves last year? This could have been worse. Maybe I should have worn a wetsuit? It would have been my insurance policy, giving me the margin that would have made the difference. I was certainly getting colder and my hands and feet were beginning to tingle. I could see the shore that I was aiming for, but it sure seemed to be a long way off. I struggled and pushed myself but it seemed like I wasn’t making any progress. I even tried to swim front crawl again. But, in my tired condition, even the smaller waves near the shore took their toll on me. With about 300 yards to go I finally realized that I should have been swimming sidestroke instead of breaststroke. I got a nice strong scissors kick going, and I started to pass the person swimming next to me. I felt like I was making some progress again. But I was already in a state of hypothermia.

I got out of the water and I ran to the place that I was supposed to change into my running gear. My wife met me there, and she was crying. I had taken an hour and twenty minutes to make this crossing. It took me 40 minutes last year. The difference was the waves, but my wife had seen an ambulance drive up, and she thought the worst. Even after seeing that I was OK, she was still upset, because someone wasn’t. In fact, a 51 year old woman who was swimming this same race had died. They found her floating in the bay and they didn’t know what had happened to her.

I don’t know any other way to explain how I felt after that swim, except that I had “fog brain.” I couldn’t think clearly. I knew that I was supposed to run seven miles, but didn’t know if I could. I probably needed some fluids, but I didn’t feel thirsty. My wife was trying to help me, but nothing seemed to make any sense. I had hoped that by running I would generate some heat and all of this would correct itself. At least that was the plan. I put my shoes and socks on and my wife and I started running. We ran slowly, but I was beginning to realize that I wasn’t going to be able to do this. My fog brain wasn’t going away and I was going into shock. I knew that this was bad, and my wife knew that it was bad. We turned around as we realized that this was just not worth the risk. The race was for fun. I could have run back and drink something and tried again. But, I knew that that would just be stupid. I was sad and dejected. Nature had won this one, but I had lived to fight another day. The fight goes on, even though we all really know that nature will win in the end. We just don’t know when.

Exercise is never easy. Lying in front of the TV, pool or beach - that is easy.

The only thing worse than motivating yourself to exercise is trying to motivate yourself to exercise when you are sore. After my first triathlon last weekend I woke up the following morning to a stiff back, aching quads and cramping calves. I must have pushed myself or some of my muscles a bit further than I was accustomed.

My normal routine is to wake up, go work out come home and get ready for work. Having this routine almost unbroken for three years allowed me to become fit and trim, and now I am worried that breaking the routine will lead to the slippery slope of lying in bed sleeping and waking up at a reasonable time.

So, as I lay in bed Monday morning contemplating whether I should go work out I began to rationalize. I postulated that I had just done a two-hour triathlon the day before. I did deserve a break, didn’t I? But my paranoid side suggested that it might take me several days to get over the soreness. Shouldn’t I move in order to work out some of the kinks and cramps? Well, after a few minutes I came up with a compromise. I would go work out, but I would do an easy pace and work out the kinks and cramps. I was fooling myself with this disillusion because I knew that once I entered the water I would begin to push myself a little harder and the workout would be more than I had talked myself into.

Motivation always seems to be a major hurdle. Even when I know that I enjoy running now I always dread that first mile in a run. Recently I have begun augmenting my exercise routine with running at work a few times a week. I began by running a 10K on Tuesdays and Thursdays at lunchtime. But, lunch is the hottest time of the day, so I kept making excuses and putting off running until it would be too late to have enough time to run and shower and get back to work. So, I talked myself into running after work instead. This way the sun needs to set before it is too late to go running. But, the most annoying thing about all this is that I have to fool myself into starting the run.

Once I get through that first mile I am ready willing and able to do 5 more without a problem.

Yesterday I was still a bit sore from the race, so I had to convince myself that it would be a good thing to run a 10K after work. It was Tuesday and I normally run after work on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Once again I started to beg for mercy because of my sore legs. They weren't nearly as sore as they were the day before, but somehow I thought that I would be able to talk myself out of running. But, 5:00 rolled around and I quickly grabbed my running stuff and got ready to run before I had enough time to talk myself out of it.

The route that I run has some unconventional points were I take splits in order to estimate how fast I am running. This is important because I know that if I take my pace out to quickly I will eventually need to give up and slow down. I am in pretty good shape now, so I don’t need to walk, but I do need to slow down to a 10 minute per mile pace if I take it out to fast.

Yesterday I ran the first 1.75 miles in 14:00 minutes even. That is an 8 minute per mile pace, which is a bit slow for me now, but I was sore and I was just working out the kinks and cramps from the race. I knew that an 8 minute per mile pace was just under 50 minutes for 6.2 miles or a 10K. So, I talked myself into keeping that pace so I could at least run a 50 minute 10K. But I thought that I could pick up the pace ever so slightly so that I could create a safety cushion of a few seconds just in case I got tired toward the end of the run. This is just another psychological method to get me to push myself a bit harder. And, sure enough I saw that my next 1.75 miles was 13:28, which was about a 7:42 minutes per mile pace. I felt pretty good, much of my soreness was a thing of the past. After this point I have a couple of short legs that usually take me 3:10 to 3:30 to do depending on my motivation and attitude. I don’t usually push these so much. I do, however, try to pick up speed from mile 4.5 to mile 6. These are two legs of .75 miles each. I try to go fast on the first one, then I try to negative split the last one. Then I coast to the end of the run, the last 0.2 miles.

I ran 5:41 for the first 0.75 leg and I beat it with a 5:29 for the second leg. I finished with a 47:42 even with waiting a couple of seconds for cars so that I could cross the street at the end. So, I guess I was able to run under the 50-minute challenge.

The weird thing about this entire escapade are the mind games that I continue to play with myself in order to motivate myself to run a little bit faster. I would feel defeated if I were to say that I was going to run under 48 minutes before I even started to run. I would talk myself into the difficulty of not being able to do 47 anything, even though I have run sub-47 10Ks before. Keeping the pace is important, because if I run too fast, 6:30 minute per mile I would not be able to keep up the pace for the entire 10K. I would quickly lose my motivation if I became exhausted from running too fast.

Motivation is such a delicate balance. No wonder people have such a difficult time sticking to an exercise program. No one is easily motivated to go out and inflict pain on themselves. Even if they do feel better afterward. Climbing that mountain only because it is there only works for some people. For most people they would rather turn on the TV and watch a video made by someone else who actually did the hard work and actually did climb the mountain.





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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

Logically I know that no one is immortal. Personally, I know that I am not invincible. But, sometimes something gets into your head and you do something that your rational self would never let you do. Then after the inevitable disaster strikes you realize how stupid you were for not listening to yourself.

Well, this happened to me about a month ago, in grand form. I have been too embarrassed to write about it, but now I have come to look back on it and laugh.

When the kids were off from school for Easter break we decided to take in some family activities. We did things that we love to do, but generally have a hard time finding that time to do them. We went to the beach at low tide and hunted in the tide pools for starfish, sea urchins and other interesting sea life. We went to the Art Museum to admire the talent and imagination that humanity has to offer. And, we went ice-skating.

I actually hadn’t been ice-skating for about ten years. The last time we went the kids that we did have were very young and unstable on the ice. I spent most of my time holding them up and pulling them around the rink. Now, however, I had teenaged children and a new body that could do some of the things I couldn’t have imagined doing ten years ago when I was over weight and out of shape.

As our family emerged out on the ice most of us were quite wobbly. One of my daughters had more experience out on the ice than the rest of us, because she had spent a few hours at a birthday party held at a skating rink. I slowly began to remember my balance, starting and stopping skills. I actually hadn’t done a lot of ice skating as a youngster. However, I did my share of roller-skating throughout the years, so the ice wasn’t completely new to me.

As I became more stable I began to try some of the things that I had done when I was in High School. I slowly increased my speed and I started to skate backward around the rink. I was being a responsible adult among a sea of kids, until a couple of teenaged hockey players came out on the ice in their pads and helmets. They began practicing some speed drills and quick stops. Unfortunately I began to watch them more carefully and it looked like it might be a lot of fun.

I began to do some quick starts and stops. Of course, as I increased my speed I became wobbly once again. I practiced this a little, but I kept adding speed. I hadn’t fallen, so I figured that I wasn’t too far off the mark After all, how can you improve if you don’t reach for your limits. This rationalization made sense to my brain that was already critically warped by speed.

Once the dominos were all lined up there wasn’t anything that could stop me from falling down. I started out going around the end of the rink picking up speed. And there was a long straight away as I came out of it. “How fast could I go?” I thought to myself. I picked up speed and my heart began to pump. But this was a breeze for someone who could now run a 10K three times a week. Unfortunately finesse and aerobic fitness do not come in the same package. My skate began to wobble and I over corrected. My body went flying forward through the air. Fortunately no one was in front of me. I landed hard right on my elbows. And both of my elbows hurt quite a bit. I got up and looked around. Everything was blurry. Did I bang my head? Did I have brain damage? No, I just lost my glasses. I turned around and saw them lying on the ice. They were bent, but not broken, just like me. After that and some previous exertion I noticed that I had become quite warm, so I removed the jacket that I was wearing. I skated around the rink, found my wife and told her about my wipe out. I pledged to slow down and concentrate on finesse instead of speed for a while. My sore elbows emphasized that desire.

I skated around working on my backward skating and I talked to my wife. I lost my need for speed, and I was happy but my elbows continued to hurt. Some ten or fifteen minutes later my wife suddenly said, “What’s wrong with your arm?”

“I told you about the crash and burn on my elbows. Why?”

“Well, your shirt is covered in blood.”
I began to wonder how I could have cut myself. I was wearing a leather coat. So even if I hit something sharp on the ice, how could I have been cut without ripping my coat? I wondered about that as I went into the men’s room to look at the damage in the mirror. I had a gash about 0.75 inches long and about a half inch deep. I put a paper towel on it and left the men’s room. And as I watched the kids continue to skate for another 45 minutes. But my arm continued to bleed. When the public skating session was over my wife, the CERT in the family said, “It hasn’t stopped bleeding in over an hour. You need stitches.”

Of course I became embarrassed immediately. How could this small indiscretion, my need for speed, turned into a trip to the doctor? I wrestled with the concept of getting sutures for a tiny cut like this. Being on my elbow, it would continue to open every time I bent my elbow. It wouldn’t stop bleeding. Obviously there was only one solution that made sense. And, since it was now After five o’clock we opted for a trip to the urgent care.

I didn’t want the doctor to laugh at me, but I knew that when I told him what had happened she would. Maybe if a nurse checked it out first? Then he would just put a Band-Aid on it and be done. No, she just said that it looked like it might need sutures, but the doctor would decide for certain. He took my vital signs, and discovered that my pulse was 43 beats per minute. He asked me if I exercised regularly. To which I told him that I did. “But, is your pulse normally this low?”

“I have seen it this low before, but normally it is a bit higher. Maybe 50 or so.”

I was told that I needed a tetanus vaccination, which would be painful. Like I didn’t have enough pain already! But, better do what the doctor (or nurse) says. Right? Well, the doctor wasn’t quite available yet. I’d just have to wait. And, a few hours later I had two sutures in punishment for my little indiscretion. Maybe the social conservatives are right. Maybe people should be punished for their indiscretions.

No, that doesn’t make any sense.





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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

The whole nutrition, diet, exercise, and health “problems” continues to baffle me.

For example, I continue to be amazed that I put on fifty pounds in less than twenty years. But, if you think about it that’s only a little more than two pounds per year. And, since we know that one pound of body fat is about 3500 calories. So, putting on an additional two and one half pounds in a year means that one would basically need to over eat just 8750 calories per year, or just 24 calories per day.

Twenty-four calories is almost nothing! And, since a person’s metabolism slows gradually as one ages it wouldn’t be unlikely that a person would eat the same amount of food over the years and as they age begin to put on weight.

One the other hand, twenty-four calories is almost nothing. That means that if a person would like to continue eating the same amount of food every day, then they just need to do a little bit more physical work to make up for the difference in metabolic rate. For example, walking at a brisk pace for 15 minutes would easily burn 25 calories.

But, what generally happens is more extreme than just a change in metabolic rate and the continuation of the status quo. In fact, people tend to be less physical as they age. You don’t usually see middle aged people out in the park throwing the Frisbee around. Hiking, biking, playing softball and even going for a swim tend to be things that the young tend to do more than the rest of us. So, sitting around watching TV and snacking at the same time tends to put those extra pounds on most of us.

Obviously it is easy to fall into the habit of coming home from a stressful day and flip on the TV and crash on the couch. Everything else seems to take effort. And stress tends to motivate us to take “down time.” The problem is that “down time” tends to be zero physical activity time. And, “down time” also means that we seek things that we hope will make the stress go away - things that make us feel good. Obviously when an “out-of-shape” person decides to make some effort they quickly learn that their body isn’t used to the physical stress. And, physical stress on top of daily stress tends to de-motivate many of us.

But, upping the activity level doesn’t mean that you need to start training for a marathon. Upping the activity level just means - go out and do something physical. Hiking, biking, and even gardening can help. But, by gardening I would suggest using the manual hedge clippers and manually walk around the yard pruning. Turn the soil by hand and carefully nurture your plants. Burn some calories. Just burning 50 to 100 addition calories per day will put you back on track and stop the endless weight gain.

Of course many people have slipped quite a ways down that path into the heavy weight kingdom. I know from personal experience that it isn’t hard to “suddenly” find yourself “fat” and “out of shape.” When you finally discover this you may need to do more than burn an additional 100 calories per day. And, based on how overweight you are and how fast you are willing to loose the weight, then more drastic measures are needed.

Starvation seems to be the course that many people opt for. I can understand the logic. People think that doing nothing is better than doing something. So, obviously eating nothing is easier than doing exercise. Unfortunately this logic needs to deal with the real world. Our bodies do not like starvation. Nature tells us that we need to eat. If we don’t eat, then we begin to crave food. This natural urge increases until it is satisfied. In fact, the urge may become so strong that it actually requires one to overeat before the urge is satisfied.

If we assume that a normal healthy person requires about 1500 calories per day for basic metabolic stability, then eating this amount one would not feel the urge to eat more, and one would neither gain nor lose weight. Starvation means eating substantially less than this amount, which brings on the hunger pangs and urge to eat.

Now, I personally lost my fifty pounds of fat over a period of 18 months. If one would try to loose fifty pound over 18 months, then they would need to eat less than calories required the metabolic rate for the entire 18 months. Since we know that one pound of fat is equal to 3500 calories; then 50 pounds of fat is 175,000 calories. And there are approximately 550 days in 18 months. So, that means that one would need to starve themselves by eating 320 calories less than 1500 calories every day for 18 months. Or, a person simply needs to eat about 1180 calories per day for 18 months to loose 50 pounds. But, remember that 1500 calories is actually about a hundred calories below what I was eating and gaining 2.5 pounds per year. So, 1180 calories is bound to put any normal person into starvation and craving mode. Could a normal person maintain these cravings and urges for one month let alone 18 months? And, many people are unhappy with loosing weight so slowly over a long period of time. But, in order to loose 50 pounds in six months one would need to eat 640 calories less or only 540 calories per day. For a reference point, 540 calories is about 3 sodas. Obviously no one could survive on three sodas per day, because there wouldn’t be any nutritional value in that sort of diet. But, how could anyone maintain nutrition and eat only 540 calories per day?

No wonder people find it so hard to loose weight. Loosing 50 pounds over 18 months of starvation would be frustrating, because the rate is so slow that there is little encouragement to suffer the starvation any longer. Trying to loose the weight even faster results in even stronger urges to eat something. And, the body also craves particular nutrition, in which 540 calories per day may not easily provide. Even eating only low sugar vegetables might not be enough to overcome the cravings for carbohydrates, protein and vitamins.

However, there is another way. The way that I lost 50 pounds in 18 months was to burn an additional 345 calories per day for 18 months. At least that’s the way I figured it. I had to loose 175,000 calories worth of fat. Over 18 months that works out to 320 calories per day, like I wrote above. But, I also had to compensate for the 25 calories per day that I had been overeating. I didn’t change my diet at all. Of course I was eating fairly well, just a bit more than I should have been eating.

I did this by exercising every day for one hour come hell or high water. I simply chose to go to the gym every morning and swim for one hour. At first I was in fairly poor shape and swimming 2000 yards took the entire hour. But, as time went by I worked myself up to swimming about 4200 yards in an hour with some variations. Slowly I added running and weight lifting as well. But, my main theme was swimming - every day. Of course I missed days occasionally, for illness or family reasons. But the default was going to the gym every morning. And, after 18 months I was down to 145 pounds and a 28-inch waist. And, I never starved myself.

And, now it is an additional 18 months later. And, I am happy to say that I now weigh about 155 pounds. But I still have that 28-inch waist. But, of course weight isn’t everything. I believe that the additional 10 pounds has come from additional muscle mass that I have put on in the last 18 months. I am certainly stronger than I was 18 months ago. But, saying that I lost fifty pounds isn’t quite right any more, so I just don’t talk about it. Except right here in this blog.






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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

If its not one thing, then its another. I just did a crazy thing and now I am wondering if I did the right thing. Was I right or was I wrong? I can’t stop thinking about it. I acted out of a spur of the moment flash of craziness, and now I wonder if I’m going to regret it in the morning.

I did it! I signed up for a triathlon. It was serendipity. I saw a running magazine sitting on the desk. It had been sitting there for a couple of months. I thought that I might throw it away, in a half-hearted effort to straighten the room. But, I thought that I might page through it just to see if anything interesting happened to pop out at me. And, it did. The magazine had a calendar that went to the end of May, featuring some local races. And, I saw that there was a triathlon just down the road a piece in just a couple of weeks. So, I logged on to their web page and signed up for it.

Now, I am wondering if I did the right thing. I know that I can do each of the legs of the race individually. I can swim 0.75 of a mile no sweat. I normally swim 2 miles every morning. I also know that I can run 5 miles with my eyes closed. I am pretty sure that I can ride 16 miles on a bike. I nearly ran that far yesterday. But, can I do all of those things right after another without taking a break? Can I even compete in the bike section with my old beat up Schwinn Mountain Bike? And, the most important question: Why did I sign up for this crazy race?

Well, after swimming from Alcatraz last year I have been thinking about doing that again. I saw that they had a more interesting race, which is to swim from Alcatraz, then run across the Golden Gate Bridge and back. That sounded like an interesting race. But, they also have an Alcatraz triathlon. But, I wasn’t sure if I could do the bike section of the race. It always seemed like the bike section was so much further than the other pieces of the race. It always seemed like the bike ride was the race, with the swimming and running just tacked onto either end.

So, I thought that I might just do a triathlon just to assure myself that it is possible to do. The Alcatraz race is longer than the one I signed up for. I figure that if I get a taste of the triathlon idea, then I could decide which race I should do during the summer. Of course, it may turn out that the race will be sold out by the time I decide. But, in any case I’ll at least have the experience of one triathlon under my belt.




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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

A few weeks ago I was invited to join a peloton. Of course I didn’t know what a peloton was, but I was able to infer its meaning from the context of the conversation. The invitation was to ride our bicycles across town and up some incredibly steep road, then stop, and watch as the cyclists from the “Amgen Tour of California” come racing up the hill.

As I have written here several times in the past, I am in much better condition than I was just three years ago. I am aerobically fit, from my daily workouts at the pool and my weekly jogging expeditions. But, my experience on a bicycle is not very recent. About 15 years ago my bicycle was my main transportation to and from work. I road a couple of miles on the bike trails in The Woodlands, Texas. And, I road a couple of miles each way to work in the rains of northern Germany. But the bike riding wasn’t really enough to keep me fit, because I managed to put on a few pounds even with the cycling. I rode, but I never made the trip a challenge, cycling was just another mode of transportation.

Since I hadn’t ridden my bicycle for quite some time I knew that it needed some maintenance. A quick look showed me that my tires were basically rotting on the rims and one of my brake cables was about to break. I bought new tires and inner tubes, but the little piece of brake cable wasn’t a standard part at the “big box” sporting goods store that I visited. The salesman suggested that I visit a “bike shop” to find the piece that I needed.

One might want to reflect on this little incident, if we remember that the “bike shop” is having difficulty competing with the “big box” sporting goods store across town. The “bike shop” is actually a neighborhood sporting goods store that also repairs bicycles in the back of the shop. The “big box” store has only been in town for about a year. I ended up buying the tires and the inner tubes at the “big box” store and then traveled across town to see if the “bike shop” had the piece of cable that I needed. I spent about $20 at the “big box” store, and the bike shop had the small cable piece I needed for $2. They also had the tires and inner tubes, but I had already bought them at the “big box” store. Obviously if other patrons behave the same way that I did it is easy to read the writing on the wall - the “bike shop” really isn’t going to survive. When I realized what I had done I looked around for something else that I might need. And I found a $20 bicycle pump that I thought that I might like to have, and I bought it. But, this was a charity purchase that I didn’t really need to make. Most people don’t even think in those terms, so I began to lament the demise of the “bike shop” before it has happened. We will all loose the ability to find those “little pieces” that the “big box” store won’t keep in inventory because they don’t sell that fast. We’ll end up needing to go online, find these things, and order them “next day” delivery instead.

With all the parts in hand I attacked my bicycle. I tore it apart and then put it back together again. I even used the new bicycle pump to fill the tires. I petitioned my family to go on a bike ride so I could test my handy work. Of course I was greeted with a blank stare questioning my sanity. My wife, feeling guilty, joined me on a short ride of about ten miles. The bicycle seemed to be in working order - ready for the peloton.

My brother-in-law works at a big “bike shop” that actually sells high-end bikes to professional racers. His store sponsors at least one race a year and maybe more. He sent us a professional bike-racing shirt that I thought would be appropriate to wear on this journey across town and into the world of bike racing. I didn’t really know what to expect, but I figured that bike racing wasn’t really as popular as the Super Bowl or the World Series. I figured that we would ride up the hill that was blocked off from automobiles and we would find ourselves alone, as I expected the typical overweight out-of-shape Americans to stay at the bottom of the hill and root from there if they even decided to watch the race at all.

I was slightly surprised when I met up with our peloton and discovered what cycling enthusiasts they were. Two of them had also wore their cycling jerseys. Three of them had very nice bikes, where mine was at least 20 years old with about 20,000 miles on it. At least it had new tires on it.

Well, as we started off I felt at ease knowing that these guys had major cycling experience. They used cycling hand signals to worn us of potential dangers, like cars. They knew how to ride through traffic and signal to the cars. And, I just followed their example. All of my cycling experience was basically on bike trails or in bicycle friendly countries. So, I followed, watched and learned.

We rode for several miles until the hill emerged ahead of us. I anticipated the hill looking forward to testing my ability to climb it with my bike. Of course the riding became slower and my heart pounded harder as we began to climb. And eventually I stopped and walked my bike a short distance up a very steep section. Then I hopped on the bike and pushed ahead a bit more. Then I was completely embarrassed when one of the experts in our group asked me why I didn’t down shift my gears. Well, I had down shifted my rear gears, but I completely forgot to do the same in the front. And, of course that made things much easier.

We rode about 1 mile up this hill and found a sharp turn in the road where we could wait for the professionals to race by. And, to my surprise the crowd had not thinned out on this stretch of the course. People were crowded and they clutched their cowbells. In fact, as we rode by many of the people rang these cowbells “just for fun” as they waited. The crowd was quite large. I imagined that the number of people crowed along this mile up the hill was larger than the number of people that gathered for the last parade that I attended. And, the people seemed to be more excited than the crowd at the last parade that I attended. Many of these people had chalked messages on the road as they waited. “Floyd was Framed, ” “Go Levi,” and “Super Fan” were some of the messages that I remember. But, the road had hundreds of these. I couldn’t imagine that any of the cyclists would even read them, but you never know.

The particular spot where we stopped had a Fox News TV camera set up on a tripod. At the time we had no idea who owned the camera, but later in the evening some footage showed up on the local Fox News affiliate taken from that vantage point. It also helped to have “Super Fan” choose this spot to root for the cyclists.

Super Fan is a guy who wore a big fuzzy wig, a red, white and blue jump suit and a red, white and blue cape. The guy was obviously an attention seeking person possibly with a mental disease. (;-}) And, he managed to get himself on the evening news acting like a loony, so got some of that attention that he was seeking.

We waited for over 30 minutes to see a couple of minutes of bike racing. First we saw a few cars and motorcycles traveling the course 10 to 15 minutes ahead of the cyclists. Apparently they are looking for loonies like “Super Fan” that might decide to disrupt the race. Super Fan got a lot of coverage on the local TV station, but he didn’t have a message. Perhaps if he were protesting something or making another statement the advance cars might figure out a way to detain him before the cyclists were to reach that spot. Behind these advance cars were several units of police, on motorcycles and in cars. These guys yelled at the crowd that walked into the street as we waited for the cyclists. More motorcycles and cars came through until finally the first group of riders came riding through behind a motorcycle that stayed just in front of the leaders.

Well, I certainly appreciated the effort those cyclists made as they pumped their way up that hill after my earlier attempt. It was amazing to me how close those guys hung together as they climbed that hill. The skill they demonstrated to me went beyond the simple ability to power that bike 650 miles across the California landscape. Controlling that bike, in that pack of cyclists pushing up and then racing down the hills, is certainly beyond my ability. Being there and witnessing the actual event is difficult to put into words, simply because so much was happening that made the event and writing about it can only be done by excluding so much.

After just a few minutes the cyclists had passed and we were on our way to the next vantage-point. As it turned out the cyclists went up the hill and around a loop. In about 30 minutes they were due to pass by once again. So, we rode back down the hill to another place to wait for them to come around their loop. And, as we waited it got colder and I began to freeze. One of the guys in our peloton made a break away and decided to ride the five miles from where we were to the finish line. But, I decided to wait instead of ride basically because I had a meeting back at work that I didn’t want to miss.

As we waited the Girl Scouts came by and sold us cookies. As I imagine this phenomena 20 years hence I see businesses exploiting this by selling soft drinks, hot dogs, ice cream and more. Once they identify the “hot spots” where all the people come to wait for the racers fly by the venders will fill in the vacuum.

The ride back afterward was fast. Most of the ride was down hill, except for a short segment uphill and into the wind. Most of the ride was effortless, aside from that little climb that I pushed hard against. But, that little fight just before arriving at my destination brought back memories of those professionals climbing that hill. My struggle made me want to fight harder. But, I wondered how long I could keep up that fight. One quarter of the way up that hill was tough, but the professionals had ¾ of the way more to go up that hill after almost 100 miles of riding. Wow.




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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

I am not a medical doctor, so I certainly don’t know the intricacies of what happens in my body. But, I am a scientist and I do make observations for a living. This being the case I often wonder why my body reacts the way it does. For example, when I get sick I observe the symptoms and note how they correspond to the symptoms that my family members had days earlier when they were inflicted with the same virus. By knowing how a virus developed I begin to anticipate what I am in for.

Over the last few years I have gradually increased my stamina, lost weight and become generally more healthy. So, when I think about the changes in my body over these last few years I still have memory of what life was like before this happened. I remember the struggle I had trying to climb the cinder cone at Lassen National Park, which in my mind was the initial event that sent me in this direction.

One of the striking changes in my body is how it responds to temperature. Four years ago I sat outside on a cool fall night here in California to listen to a concert. The outdoor temperature was in the low 50s, and I was unfazed by the temperature. Some of my friends were also there and were obviously quite cold in their buttoned up jackets, but I remained comfortable through the concert. One of my friends commented about how the temperature didn’t seem to bother me. I told them that I had effective insulation.

On another day a few years later I found myself struck in traffic in the Texas summer heat without air conditioning. I sat there praying for the traffic to break up so I could get back to my apartment to cool off. And, while I sat there I remembered my first trip to Texas where the high heat and high humidity weren’t quite as uncomfortable. At the time I wondered why I had become less accustomed to the heat. But, today I realize that I had also put on some extra weight between those two events. Insulation is a good thing when you want to keep the heat inside, but it is a bad thing when you want to get rid of the excess heat. My body certainly works this way.

But I also know that body heat is more than just insulation. It is also about metabolism. Metabolism has to do with how a body uses energy. For example, when a body burns calories it generates heat. This happens during exercise, but it also happens in an effort to maintain body temperature. And, when a body has an excess layer of insulation it doesn’t need to generate as much heat to maintain body temperature. And, so the body learns to conserve energy and slow metabolism. Or, at least that’s what I’ve observed in my body. The ramifications of this is that as someone puts on body fat they increase insulation and no longer need to burn as many calories to maintain body heat. If one eats the same amount and exercises the same amount, then they are likely to produce less heat and have a lower metabolism rate. Of course there are certainly other factors here and I am not making a blanket statement, but this seems to be the case with my personal experience. But, the interesting thing is that by exercising one increases their metabolism for not only the period during the exercise but for some time afterward.

This is something that I personally noticed. When I started exercising I did not exercise regularly at first. But I did go to work everyday regardless of whether I exercised or not. So, I woke up, exercised then went to work or I woke up did not exercise and then went to work. I noticed that on days that I exercised I was much warmer in my office than on days that I did not exercise. My office temperature was basically the same temperature, so my warmth was related to whether I exercised or not. I made this observation over many days and thought about whether I ate differently on different days at breakfast or at lunch or during the day. The fact that I exercised in the morning had the most important effect, until I lost quite a bit of weight. So, the fact that I exercised and burned calories in the morning was part of my weight loss equation. I also boosted my metabolism so that I continued to burn more calories during the day as well.

When my body fat percentage dropped, I became more sensitive to temperature. Of course I had less insulation, or fat to burn. So, at this point it didn’t matter if I exercised or not I was still cold in my office. As I thought about this I wondered what would happen if I ate something for lunch. I soon found that by eating a high calorie snack I began to feel warmer. Putting the sugar in my blood stream tended to increase my generation of body heat. Of course, this made quite a bit of sense.

Any way, those are just a few observations on my personal physiology…



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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Exercise, Health

I came, I swam, I finished...

I don’t like to brag about my achievements. However, I’d like to tell people who are struggling that they can do it. They can turn their lives around and feel better and feel healthier. For those of you who don’t want to read another of my exercise/health posts I am sure you’ve already clicked on to something else. I just hope that some of you who are trying to become healthier will continue to read on.

Saturday I swam the legendary 1.25 miles from Alcatraz to San Francisco. It doesn’t sound like it’s very far, and really it isn’t very far. The cold water made a bigger impression on me than the distance that I actually swam. The swim was one of those things that I just convinced myself that I wanted to do after I started to become healthy after so many years of being a lethargic couch potato.

I’ve told my story of the last two or three years a few times now, so I’ll just mention the highlights for those who are new to my blog. Out of serendipity more than anything else I began to swim daily a little more than two years ago. I had no major goal in mind except that I’d like to exercise and feel better. I would have been happy to loose ten or maybe even twenty pounds. But, over the first 18 months I actually lost 50 pounds. And, even better than that I have continued to maintain my weight since Christmas. In fact, I am slowly building muscle while I continued to loose a couple of inches around my waist. My pants size is now 28, and it is a real pain trying to find size 28 pants. I have resorted to buying size 30 pants and wearing a belt so that they don’t fall off.

The problem is that body fat is a “good” thing when you try to swim in really cold water. Based on a body fat calculation I have less than 3% body fat.

So, when I jumped into San Francisco Bay on Saturday I thought that I might be in trouble. Surprisingly the cold water did not bother me at all while I was swimming. However, upon exiting the water I began to shiver uncontrollably for some time until I realized that the only way I was going to warm up was by moving around. After I began to jog in place for a few minutes the shivering subsided and I was only a bit cold instead.

The swim itself was quite an experience. They take the entire group of swimmers and a few guests out on a boat and stop just off shore of Alcatraz. The object is to jump off the boat and swim to the San Francisco Aquatic Park, which is east of Crissy Field, and west of Fisherman’s Warf. This sounds easy in principle, but if you wear glasses like myself the landmarks are not as distinct as I would have liked. The race coordinators were very nice and they instructed us how we should plan our swim, because of the tidal currents. The main issue is that a break wall surrounds the Aquatic Park with a very small opening between the bay and the protected area. The opening is certainly larger than 50 yards, but when you are swimming from a mile away the target seems to be very small. Everyone was also warned that if one were to swim directly toward the opening the current would push you to the west and chances of making it into the Aquatic Park would become very slim.

I decided that I would swim this event without a wetsuit. This was mainly because I didn’t own a wetsuit, and secondly it seemed like it defeated the point of swimming from Alcatraz. I mean, if I was a prisoner at Alcatraz I certainly doubt that I would have the possibility of finding a wetsuit so that I could escape. I was romanticizing the idea of escaping from a so-called impossible to escape from prison. The wetsuit idea just didn’t mesh well with the romantic notion. After all, swimming 1.25 miles is a walk in the park in a pool with 82 degree water.

So, there I stood on the deck of this tourist boat that was commandeered for the event. Three hundred and fifty swimmers and another 150 guests surrounded me waiting for the signal to jump into the water and begin the swim. The event was timed like a race, but your position in line greatly effected where one might place. I believe that I had to wait more than five minutes from the time the horn sounded until I actually jumped into the water. But, this was my first time, so I didn’t expect to be able to win it. If that were to be my goal, then I would certainly camp out next to a door next time.
We lined up like storm troopers waiting to jump from a plane. Three people at a time we jumped into the cool bay water and quickly swam away from the boat. The major question was, where should we swim. I knew the general direction of San Francisco, but I couldn’t make out the Jeremiah O’Brien, the Naval ship we were instructed to swim toward. Floating in the bay gives you an entirely different perspective, Golden Gate Bridge to the right, Bay Bridge to the left, and the city straight ahead. I just started swimming in that direction hoping that I would be swimming in the right direction, and if not a kayaker would signal to me which way to turn. There were several kayaks along the course intending to keep the swimmers on the straight and narrow.

I swam at least half the distance before I saw my first target, and in seeing it I picked up my pace. But, not long after this renewed gusto I was hit by a couple of choppy waves. I assume they must have been from a wake of a boat travelling nearby. These small waves were nothing compared to the six-foot waves I had swum in, in preparation for the race. I continued to push on, and I noticed that there were currents of different temperatures as I swam across the bay. The water was first cold, then warmer, then much colder and so on. Finally I saw the three masts of the schooner that was docked in the Aquatic Park, behind the break wall. When I saw it I turned and started swimming toward it, but soon I found myself swimming in a direction that would have taken me past the opening and I needed to correct course. In fact I found myself continually correcting course as I neared the opening. Without that line on the bottom to follow I found myself zigzagging a bit more than I would have liked. Each zigzag meant I would need to swim a bit further.

When I finally entered the Aquatic Park the water was noticeably warmer and I could finally see the finish line ahead. And, as I entered the Aquatic Park so did a few more swimmers that I hadn’t seen during the race. In fact I actually saw very few swimmers during the race, mainly because my eyes were only a few inches above the water whenever I looked around, which limited my view to only a few yards at most as I looked for other swimmers heads. But, the best part of all was when I heard the sound of my wife and kids yelling when I got out of the water. I didn’t know where they were, but I could make out their voices quite distinctly.

Well, I finished the race and I shivered as I wrote above, but I was simply amazed that people continued to finish the race for quite some time. I don’t know how long it took me to swim this event, because they haven’t posted the results yet. I don’t even know when the last person finished, because I lost my sense of time for a while as I recovered from my hypothermia. But, I don’t feel sore or even stiff from this event, as compared to some running races that I have completed.

As I take this moment to think about what I did and what I might do next I feel better than I ever have. I am certainly in better shape than I have been in for the last twenty or more years. And, my running is actually coming along just fine as well. In fact a week before the Alcatraz swim I ran 14 miles, which is slightly more than half a marathon. It took me two hours to run 14 miles, which isn’t very fast, but the point is that I have never run for two hours straight without stopping ever. I ran ten miles in one and a half-hour back in March. But I was excited that I could run 14 miles, which is now my personal record for the longest I have ever run in my entire life. When I was on my high school cross-country team we never ran that far. I may have run a 10K once, but most races were much shorter, three or four miles. So, when it comes to 14 miles I know that I have never run that far in my lifetime. But, at this rate I just may be able to do a marathon.

It is certainly hard for me to imagine three years ago that I would be swimming from Alcatraz, running 14 miles, or contemplating the possibility of running a marathon or competing in a triathlon.

Life certainly is a mystery.





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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Exercise,
Health,
Fitness