Just spent a moment during a conference call to measure my resting heart rate. It’s 52 beats per minute, which is pretty darn good. I’ve been walking briskly for 20 minutes every morning since we got the dog and think it’s paying off.
Also, my cholesterol is measuring down now, which is great news. The overall numbers are in the normal range, though there’s still room for improvement. Being healthy rules!
Got a bit of sunburn yesterday. We were in Warrenton to surprise Kelly’s mother on her birthday. Kelly’s dad, the kids, and I flew two kites in the wind kicked up by a passing front. The combination of bright May sunshine, a cool breeze, little humidity, and forgetting to apply any sunscreen led to a lobster-like left arm.
Fortunately I had my ballcap on so my shiny dome didn’t cook, too.
During the beach daydream of the other day, I also had a strange but interesting idea flash through my mind. It was of a material that can change its state and density instantly through some sort of simple but as-yet-undiscovered process. When an electric or mechanical field is applied, the material changes from a solid, concrete-like density to a liquid form (or various stages in between). It’s like melting a block of ice and refreezing it, only instantly – with a flip of a switch. This change can also affects the material’s weight (but perhaps not its mass), so that it can be easily manipulated with the process is in effect but becomes heavy again in its natural state. The process involves harmonizing the material’s molecules or atoms in some way so that they’re all synchronized, a process which somehow suspends the material’s usual properties.
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I walked out of one of the buildings on the company campus the other day and became hypnotized by the warm sun and gentle breeze. I daydreamed the steps I was walking down were sand dunes and the well-manicured lawn I was facing was an endless ocean. Suddenly, returning to a windowless cubicle in an air-conditioned maze wasn’t as appealing as it had been.
Dang my luck that the best job in the world was just claimed. That’ll teach me to actually apply for something next time!
The N&O ran the following story today on the fight to derail H1252/S1004, the [Un-]Level Playing Field Act.
Cable TV fights towns’ fast Web links
The industry backs a bill to impede municipalities offering high-speed service.
By John Murawski – Staff Writer
What started as an experiment in a small tobacco community in Eastern North Carolina has shown how a local government can provide its residents with some of the fastest Internet speeds available anywhere.
Read full article.
It’s been a crazy week for me, to be sure. I spent most all of my free time doing whatever I could to keep a cable TV monopoly from locking out competition. That had me making lists, working the phone, keeping score, and generally making as much noise as I could. So far it seems to have been successful, though my guard isn’t completely down. I still feel compelled to make this go away for good, and that’s what I intend to do.
Then there was the speech I gave last night, and all the time I spent blogging about everything, which is not an insignificant amount of time. Sometimes I catch myself in the middle of a week like this and wonder how I got here. Then I remind myself that life is for living, and if I spent my time sitting around bored I would not be happy.
Now if I can keep myself from working too hard this weekend so that I can actually relax for a change.
Naaaaah!
Rob Weir provides a great article illustrating how to give a compelling lecture. Very good advice! As an occasional public speaker I will take this to heart.
(h/t Boing Boing)
I generally like Elizabeth Edwards, having met her during the campaign. Even so, I didn’t want to hear about John Edwards’s affair last year and I still don’t. Please, can we all just move on?
Planning is being done on a mega-greenway spanning the east coast. Called the East Coast Greenway, it aims to provide a bike and walker-friendly path from Maine to Florida. Part of this trail will be going through Raleigh by way of Falls Lake and alongside the Neuse River. It will enter town at the north by way of the CSX railroad tracks, which is also the proposed Southeast High Speed Rail Corridor.
NCDOT is holding a series of meetings to gather input on the part of the proposed trail that will run alongside the track. Most of these meetings are in towns north of Wake County but one is being held in Wake Forest. The meetings are to gather input as to which side of the rail corridor would be best for the trail, among other things.
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Cussin’ In Tongues (YouTube) (band MP3)
Th’Legendary Shack Shakers
Way back yonder where the gravel road ends
Fourth holler over, plum up to the head
On an AC tractor reapin’ reefer on a hill
Got an inverted cross of lights on his grill
Shape-note singin’ ’bout whiskey and sin
With an amplified bible cranked up to ten
He’s a preacher,
He’s a teacher,
He’s a demon in disguise,
Red checkerboard pattern in the whites of his eyes.
And you can tell by the sound of his cussin’ in tongues
It’s best you boys just a-run along.
Best you boys just run on along,
Before the cock crows three times tonight.
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