SingleGirl's Best Question

I've recently added a few dating blogs to my Google Reader, including Sex, Lies and Dating in the City. Simone Grant, aka SingleGirl, writes about some of her dating exploits, history, and advice. 


I like this piece of advice, from her post, The Best Question:

Anyway, we didn't spend the whole night talking about my silly business issues.  Eventually we talked about more frivolous topics - men and dating.  We talked about the types of guys we tend to date (over and over) and online dating and recent exes and at some point she shared a piece of advice that a good friend once gave her. If you're wondering whether you should be with a guy, ask yourself this question, "Do you want your sons growing up to be like him?"

WOW!

I'd never heard that before but I gotta say, that's definitely one of the smartest things I've ever heard in regards to relationships. Even as a woman who's not going to have kids, I feel like it just drives to the very heart of why I might not want a man in my life. Because, seriously, if I wouldn't want my (theoretical) sons to grow up and be like someone, then he probably isn't good enough for me.

Now, I just have to remember to live that advice.

Wow is right, Simone. I actually would like to maybe kinda sorta really actually am totally freaked out by the idea waiting for the right partner but actually would like to have a kid. And yeah, my partner better well be a good role model. Moms and dads out there, did you think about this? 

Do you have questions like this to help you navigate through your dates? A friend of mine who is having a tough time deciding about whether to keep going with a relationship or not to think about what she would do if she was the guy. I think it was something like, "Would all of this even be in doubt if you were the guy? Would you keep dating, or would you just end it?" She said that if she was the guy, it'd be over. (physical/chemistry issues - surrounded by a mostly otherwise good companionship) And you know what? I think they're still dating. So these big questions - they're good to get you to look at things from a different perspective, but you still actually have to act to make changes. 

Fast forwarding....

I'm not into the holidays. Seriously, I think it's a great time to spend with family and friends, but it seems like it's also a magnet for bad stuff to happen. If we're talking holidays, let's fast forward to Martin Luther King, Jr day, what do you say?

So... fast forwarding brings us into the first couple of weeks of all of those New Year's resolutions. Yeah. Those. If you're looking for some fitness inspiration, check out these badass Crossfit chicks. Seems a little far off to me too, but also way better than looking to The Skinny Website for inspiration!

Oh, and here's the dude version of the women's Crossfit competition pictures. Sometimes a shirtless guy is also good motivation.

(No, I did not name those PDFs. And I don't want to hear about it, either.)

thursday notes

some notes:

as seen during yesterday's mid-afternoon run:
1. saxophone-only band playing christmas music near the ferry building
2. tons of tourists out and about in their newly-purchased "SF" jackets, due to the abnormally cold temps (low altitude snow, hail, 32 degrees when i woke up on wednesday)
3. old lady, swimsuit only, going into the bay at aquatic park for a swim. wow. it was maybe 45 deg during the day - and the bay's not much warmer. and some people think i'm hardcore. ha. 

other:

• i like to donate to the salvation army bell ringers in illinois. while the ones in california did have a rough few days with our winter weather, it's seriously nothing compared to the biting wind and nasal-passage-freezing temps of my home state.
  
• while that is true (that the sf winter is nothing), i am not prepared for cold temps here. i just finally got a space heater and still do not own a real winter jacket. so 32 is really freaking cold. also, older buildings do not seem to have any insulation.
  
• my work has real christmas trees in the elevator lobbies. that have been sprayed with a flame retardant. 
1. it is really refreshing to get a whiff of pine tree when you're getting off the elevator on a monday morning
2. it's strange to see a naked tree in the elevator lobby
3. don't get too close to that pine fresh scent, cuz you'll also get a whiff of flame retardant flavored carcinogens. 
• gretchen said that reading my list of 2010 activities made her tired. well, being a mom. being a working mom. being a working mom with a husband who travels. yeah. that makes me want to crawl under the covers for a while.
  
• i'm still somewhat in denial that it's december
• neither of these verbalizations of 2010 are really working for me: twenty-ten.. two thousand ten... how are you going to say next year's year?

three forwards

Three things. All forwarded to me. And I'm "forwarding" them to you here. Bwahahaha. Passive forwarding.

FORWARD NUMBER ONE 
Last night a UPS man came to the house to deliver a package...normal
He was wearing a Saftey Jacket, not the normal Brown...Different
He also had on a Bike helmet...Way different

I asked him what was up and he said that we here in Palo Alto are the third community (Portland, Seattle, Palo Alto...He mentioned that San Jose might be up soon and it seems like Oregon is about to boom) in the US where UPS is trying out bike delivery.  Every morning they drop of a tractor trailer full of packages in the neighborhood and then 6 guys with bikes and bike trailers ride around and deliver the packages. 

He said that it is really working well, he is way tired at the end of the day, but that it is much easier to get around town.

This is a trial, just for the holiday season, but he hopes that it will take off and become a full time gig.  Lets hope it does!!

---------------------------

I just found this about the Portland program:

"Shipping giant United Parcel Service (UPS) will add a new weapon to its arsenal in the holiday shipping battle this year — bicycles.

Jeff Grant, the company’s workforce planning manager for the Oregon district (that includes Vancouver, WA), says UPS plans to hire 28 bike delivery employees this season. In the Portland metro area, Grant says eight riders will be hired. I spoke with Grant via phone yesterday. He said the main impetus for the bike delivery program was to save money.

“For every three bikes we use for deliveries, we save an average of 17 gallons of fuel per day (compared to one truck). That’s about $50 in savings.” Across the entire district, Grant says for every three bikes used during the holiday season, UPS will save $38,000 in vehicle operation and upkeep costs.

UPS has purchased a fleet of mountain bikes outfitted with a 200 pound capacity trailer (with a cover for rain of course) and a set of lights. All bike delivery staff will be uniformed and helmets are required.


Before hitting the road, Grant says each rider will undergo a paid orientation and training session. The custom-tailored training will focus on operating the bicycle and trailer safely. “We realize the riders will be experienced already,” says Grant, “but have they ever pulled 200 pounds? Do they know the safe following distance in wet weather?”


According to Grant, he’ll ask delivery staff to deliver about 25-50 packages per day, compared to 150 stops a day for a normal “package car”. Grant added an interesting historical note to this story: UPS started delivering by bike in Seattle (where they were founded) over 100 years ago. Today, the company once again uses bikes for deliveries up in Seattle and Grant said it went so well they’ve decided to expand the program. 


UPS is looking to hire bike delivery people in Vancouver (WA), Portland, Salem, Corvallis, Eugene, and Medford. If you’re interested, call Maria Mason at (503) 978-7409 or email mariamason(at)ups(dot)com."

Image borrowed from FROG blog cuz I wanted to show a picture of the trailer.

FORWARD NUMBER TWO

Tired of feeling tired?

Get the WakeMate, the cell phone accessory wristband that lets you sleep less and feel better! 

http://www.wakemate.com/ 

FORWARD NUMBER THREE

Fantastic.  Greg sends along this DIY FYI:

"Good news is that I truly out did myself this year with my Christmas decorations.. The bad news is that I had to take him down after 2 days. I had more people come screaming up to my house than ever.Great stories. But two things made me take it down.

First, the cops advised me that it would cause traffic accidents as they almost wrecked when they drove by.

Second, a 55 year old lady grabbed the 75 pound ladder almost killed herself putting it against my house and didn't realize it was fake until she climbed to the top (she was not happy). By the way, she was one of many people who attempted to do that. My yard couldn't take it either. I have more than a few tire tracks where people literally drove up my yard."

Edit: I don't know what's up with all of the excessive spacing. I don't see it that way in my Compose screen in blogger. :( Sorry it's kind of unpleasant to read.

Crossfit video

Crossfit... I call it Ninja Training here, because, after describing my first class, G$ said, "Oh my god, you're doing ninja training."

I figured that I was the only one in this little, um, cult, that thought that Crossfit conjured up images of ninja-rey. Turns out, I'm wrong. Hilarious video making fun of Crossfitters... ff to around 3:15 if you just want to catch the ninja reference. As in "I'm going to hang rings up in front of my house and do muscle-ups... everyone will think a fucking ninja lives here."

Speaking of cults... marathoners are a little like a cult too. Good luck at CIM tomorrow, AM!

2010 plans

Races and events I'm considering for 2010. Happy to have company along the way.

Kaiser Permanente Half Marathon. (running) Feb 7. San Francisco.

Fight for Air Climb. (1,197 stairs) March 27. San Francisco.

Cinderella Classic and Challenge. (60 - 90 mi bike) April 10. Alameda County.

Wildflower Long Course. (half IM) May 1. Lake San Antonio.

Vineman 70.3.(half IM) July 18. Sonoma County.

Chicago Triathon. (Olympic) August 29. Chicago.

Nike Women's Half Marathon. (running) mid-late Oct. San Francisco.

Other stuff on my mind:

Bike ride around Lake Tahoe, ideally part of an organized ride since the road can be dangerous

Another Olympic distance tri, maybe Folsom again, or San Jose

10k running race, just cuz it's been a while

Levi's Gran Fondo road ride

Some other random bike century

Camping

TRAVEL! My poor passport didn't get used at ALL in 2009. So sad.

Wisdom of Coco Chanel

"A girl should be two things: classy and fabulous." – Coco Chanel
Fabulous. Check.
Now classy... hahahaha. 

Happy Friday, friends!

Worthwhile 7:33. Well said, Sen. Diane Savino

Intervals are your friend

This is a long post, cut and past from my weekly RoadBikeRider email. But, I want to be faster. And maybe you do too.

I also think this explains why my running performance was roughly maintained this summer, even though I only ran 1-2 times a week. One of those days was a speed - read: interval - day and the other was a longer run. Guess I should head back to the track again soon...


Does Interval Training Improve Endurance?

No doubt about it, according to a new study published in the November issue of the Journal of Applied PhysiologyGabe Mirkin, M.D., in his weekly ezine (available at http://www.drmirkin.com).

We're pleased because the findings underscore a training approach long promoted by RBR's Coach Fred Matheny. Here's an overview: and reported by cycling physician
 
Dr. Jens Bangsbo of the University of Copenhagen asked competitive distance runners to reduce their mileage by 25% but add 8-12 half-minute sprints 2 or 3 times per week. They also ran fast repeats of 0.6-0.8 miles (1-1.3 km) 1 or 2 times per week.

Meanwhile, a control group of runners continued what was basically long, steady distance training.

After 6-9 weeks, the control group showed no improvement. Runners in the intervals group, however, improved both their 3-km (1.8-mile) and 10-km (6.1-mile) race times by more than 3%. Half of them ran their best times ever, even though they'd been racing for more than 5 years.

That's remarkable improvement after only about 2 months of interval training.

Two years earlier, Dr. Mirkin reports, Dr. Bangsbo had done ground-breaking research supporting the theory that exhaustion of the "sodium-potassium pump" (not lactic acid buildup) is the major cause of muscle fatigue during exercise.

Now in his new study, Dr. Bangsbo shows how interval training improves a muscle's capacity to pump potassium back inside muscle cells during exercise. This helps athletes run or ride faster even in very long events such as marathons and multi-day bike rides.

Dr. Mirkin explains that a muscle can contract only if it has an electrical charge across the muscle cell membrane. This electrical charge comes from having sodium primarily outside the cell and potassium primarily inside the cell. These higher concentrations are maintained by the sodium-potassium pump in the cell membranes.

Dr. Bangsbo showed that during rapid contractions, muscle cells lose potassium so fast that it's doubled outside cells in less than a minute. The pump is overwhelmed. This reduces the electrical charge between the inside and outside, so muscle cells contract with much less force until finally they cannot contract at all. 

Now here's the good news. Repeated muscle contractions can increase the ability of the pump to put potassium into cells. The greater the force on a muscle during training, the more effectively the pump can do this. It's why a training plan that increases the number of intense efforts will give an athlete greater endurance.

How to Apply these Facts

You cannot gain maximum endurance just with continuous steady exercise, says Dr. Mirkin. It's also a message found in various RBR training eBooks written by Coach Fred, Coach David Ertl and Arnie Baker, M.D.

To improve your sodium-potassium pump, you need to put some serious force on your muscles. And probably the "easiest" way to do it is with interval training (although hard climbing and time trialing can work too).

Of course, Dr. Mirkin cautions, intense exertion can kill a person who has blocked heart arteries.* You should get your physician's permission before increasing hard efforts.

Once cleared, you can do intervals on the road or on a trainer. There are 2 basic types for this discussion:

---short intense efforts of 30 seconds or less

---long intense efforts of 2 minutes or more

"Intense" is for you to decide. It's possible to ride as hard as you can for half a minute, but the effort can't be quite as great when going longer.

Dr. Mirkin recommends 30-second intervals once or twice a week. Do 6, 8, 10 or more sprints during a session, then follow with a short, easy recovery day.

Because long intervals of 2+ minutes are more stressful, you can't do as many during a workout or do them as often. You may need 2 days of easy riding for recovery.

Rest Intervals

Athletes usually learn their ideal between-effort rest interval through experience, notes Dr. Mirkin.

You may want to rest until your pulse drops enough for you to begin to feel comfortable. Or until you're able to slow your breathing rate towards normal, or until your muscle discomfort begins subsiding. But don't wait for complete recuperation before going again.

Between interval workouts, if it takes longer than 2 days to recover you are probably riding too intensely, doing too many repetitions, or your rest intervals are too short.

Weekly Training Plan

In Dr. Mirkin's view, based on Dr. Bangsbo's research and his own cycling experience (he's 74 and a dedicated roadie), a weekly endurance training program should include a good amount of relatively slow miles, 1 or 2 workouts with numerous short intervals, and perhaps one workout that includes several long intervals. 


*I like how there's the "of course" part wrt getting killed by intervals. Thanks for throwing that in there, guys. Ok, fine. I'll finally find a physician and get a physical. However, if, after doing endurance sports with a fairly high level of intensity for the past 5+ years, it turns out I have something wrong with my cardiovascular system, I'm going to be seriously pissed off.

2000-2010: Science

I'm expecting that we'll start reading a lot of top 10 lists about the past decade. (BTW, Wow. That was fast. And let's not even think about what any of us thought we would and wouldn't be doing in 2010, back in 2000.) Today, I tease you with the Smithsonian Magazine's science blog's  Top 10 Great Moments in Science. 

10. Hurricane Katrina track forecasting

9. Gene therapy

8. Solving the Poincaré Conjecture

7. “Intelligent design” struck down in a Pennsylvania court

6. Evidence of water on Mars

5. Clinical trials show hormone replacement therapy (HRT) has problems

4. Climate change research wins a Nobel Peace Prize

3. A spacecraft maps the remnants of the Big Bang

2. The discovery of “Ardi,” our ancestor

1. The sequencing of the human genome

Check out the link for more info on each of these scientific achievements.

Yesterday was World AIDS Day.

I wrote this little blurb and then didn't post it yesterday. It doesn't seem particularly mind-blowing, or interesting. But, let's face it, neither is the majority of the shit I post anyway. And since most of my readers are my friends, ya'll are a smart bunch of cookies anyway, (nom nom nom I love cookies) and know that AIDS is a big fucking deal. So here you go... some stuff that you already know, but I'm telling you again anyway, because it was on my mind on World AIDS Day.

----------------

HIV+ people can live healthy, wonderful lives for a long time, given proper treatment. And this is good, very good. (The cost, and world-wide availability of this treatment is another topic entirely.) Regardless, existing drug therapies that limit the impact of the virus makes me optimistic for a true cure. That cure does not yet exist and people die from AIDS.

Get tested and be safe.

Trash sucks. Four options.

Trash sucks. Trash is something that is unusable and is an indication of an inefficiency.


Yes. It is inefficient for a manufacturing process to create substandard products that don't make it to market and end up as waste. It is inefficient to throw away food products that have rotted or are undesirable. E-waste - all of our old electronics that are either broken or outdated - an inefficient use of materials.

Still, trash happens. Not all of it has to sit in a landfill, though. We've gone through the four Rs before. Reduce, reuse, recycle, repurpose.

Let's review reuse and recycle, then look at two other ways of dealing with trash.

1.Creative reuse, or just plain reuse. Denim scraps (an inefficiency in the process of making jeans) can be used to create insulation.

2. Recycling. We're familiar with this - glass, plastic, metal, paper. There's a lot of energy that goes into recycling - sorting, hipping recyclables all over the place, then processing the post-consumer goods into a usable raw material for manufacturers. Then, of course, re-manufacturing that material into something that's hopefully really effing useful. And something that can be re-recycled, if needed.

3. Compost. Organics have this neat element called carbon. Ooooh. Carbon. It means that it can decompose and turn into fertilizer. And we need that to grow stuff. Way better for our planet than using nitrogen based fertilizers. Yay! Industrial composters can take all sorts of things, like waxy cardboard, used pizza boxes, bones, shellfish parts... But there's a big NIMBY issue with the collection, transport and processing (composting). Augh. That sucks.

4. Burn the shit. Yep. W2E, waste-to-energy. Burn trash and make heat. But, what about all the pollutants that are formed from burning the shit that should have been recycled (like plastics)? I mean, styrofoam burns super hot (a W2E'er called it "jet fuel"), but do you want that in your air? Fuck no. But... is it worse than the by-products of coal fired power plants? This article says that W2E is better than coal (check pg 3 for a graphy-graph)... and on-par with natural gas to create heat (not electricity). I don't love it, but I think it's better than having it sit in a landfill, releasing methane gas (sucks more than carbon dioxide, from a GHG perspective... and yeah, it can be captured and recovered from landfills, but it is not always done).

Thoughts? 

update:

the guy that i went dancing with a few weeks ago? out until 3:30am without a phone number? yeah, through the wonders of facebook (i finally ponied up and sent him a friend request) turns out he's "in a relationship." that explains that.

one online guy left - we went out once last week and will potentially go out again this week. nothing to snark at. he recently moved back to the bay area to live closer to his family. awww.

new boy stuff? meh, nothing too interesting to discuss. a potential crush and we may have already gone on a date. the biking date. always tough to decipher, but pretty much guaranteed to be fun because it involves a bike ride. i dig dudes who ride.

the end.

p a c m a n

Chomp chomp chomp.

By Etsy seller luckyduct