Recently I purchased a pedometer. According to a large amount of literature, a person should try to walk 10,000 steps per day to stay healthy. That is roughly 5 miles per day. Now I thought I walked a lot every day, but apparently I’m not reaching my 10,000 steps.

If I attach the pedometer first thing in the morning, I will have 300+ steps by the time I reach my desk at work. I could try to add to that by parking farther from the door, but our parking lot is only so big. By going to get coffee, or walking to someones desk instead of e-mailing or using the phone, I can have 1,000+ steps by lunch time. That will give me around 3,000 steps when I head to my car in the evening. Only 7,000 steps to go….

I’ve been walking at lunch for about 20-30 minutes and that adds about 2,000 to 2,500 steps to my daily count. So only 4,500 steps left. On most days, this is almost all the steps that get counted. Even roaming through the Walmart store, or other shopping that I do, only add about 1,000 steps. Making dinner, catching up with the things I have to do at home maybe 1,000 more. So I’ve usually been 2,000+ steps shy of 10,000 every evening. I guess I could do less internet surfing and reading during the evening hours, but that is how I relax after the day. I’m not big on doing the exercise bit, never have been, and even though I know it would be good for me, I resist. I guess I will have to see how many steps I get when I do things like cut wood this winter. I always thought that was good exercise when I did it, but I never knew how much I walked to get the wood back to the house. I will find out soon enough….

Today there are no worries about getting my 10,000 steps in. I almost accomplished that at work today. In our work move, some of the extra furniture was stored in two meeting rooms. Today was the day to get 1 of those rooms in order. So, by moving stuff from one place to another I managed to hit 7,000 steps by 12:00 pm today. With all of the other walking I did, I only have 500 to hit the magic 10,000 mark. And since I’m in a play, I guess I will be adding some daily pacing to my other walking activities.

Oh well, I need to be off to pick up my youngest. A few more steps out to the truck…

PRICE WARS!!!

It appears that major toy resellers are trying very hard to get your holiday dollars. With hard economic times, we all need a break or two, so this could be a benefit to those out shopping for children they know.

According to the article Toys-R-Us is going to open mini shops just in time for Christmas. These may or may not have good deals, but they will give some out of work people short term jobs for the holidays.

Wal-Mart has a $10 toy sale, so that again may or may not be a good deal. It all depends on the toy.

I heard that Target was having some Christmas event with the Toy department too, but I have not found any news story online to back it up.

Or you could do what I plan on doing… Dig a hole in your backyard and hide until the Christmas shopping season is over… 😉 Oops, I can’t do that, I’m in a play. Oh yeah, that is like hiding until something is over. I won’t have time for anything else.

Another very windy night. I’m hearing branches and various nuts hit the house and roof. I’m sure there will be a couple of trees down somewhere with this storm. Guess I will have to leave for work early, just in case something falls over the lane.

Anyway, now is not the time to be running around in the woods, but that is exactly what one little dog wanted to do. I guess when you got to go, you got to go. Being so close to the ground, he is out of most of the wind. He didn’t stay out too long, I guess the falling acorns bothered him.

I’m not sure if I will get any sleep with this wind. After seeing one huge tree on the ground this week, I guess I’m just expecting another to fall. Nothing nearly as big as the fallen oak, but there are a few a bit closer to the house, like within 10 feet.

I don’t recall many fall days with heavy winds like this. To have so many in a week seems to be really out of the ordinary, but I’m not sure. I usually think of late spring and early summer as the heavy wind days.

I was just thinking about the last time a big tree blew down near the house. We were all in the house that evening, and we were having another big wind storm. There was a loud crash and the house shook, but we could not see what fell. The next morning we saw that the big ash behind our house fell directly away from the house. That was about 18 years ago. My youngest was home and on a breathing monitor. We lost power, and I remember being on a list for a quick restore. Funny how that came to my mind this evening.

There is one problem with being involved in the theater. When you plan a holiday show, the rehearsals start well before the actual holiday season. And since our Christmas show starts at the beginning of December, the rehearsal is also earlier. I don’t like to do Christmas until after Thanksgiving.

Anyway, it will my job to bring Santa Clause to life in “Miracle on 34th Street”. Ok, so I’m not playing Kris Kringle/Santa Clause, but I am playing 2 different Santa Clauses. And some other part I cannot remember right now.

For those of you who do know the show, the first Santa I play is the drunk Santa that loses his job because he was trying to stay warm on the float. One little drinks never hurt, doesh it?

To make the show even better for me, I get to act with one of my daughters again. This is always a thrill for me. Should be fun.

I just found a recipe for next years Summer parties. It looks like it would be quick, easy and really inexpensive. The question remains who would eat it. Hmmmm Is anyone ready for Fried Grasshoppers?

Now I am sure that most people would see the grasshopper on the plate and just pass on this wonderful new recipe. So I have found more ways to serve bugs, and there are even some that you won’t see the bug at all.

More on eating bugs.
Even more on eating bugs.
More recipes.
Are you grossed out yet?

and it doesn’t hit the house, did it really fall?

In the back of my house, some 80 to 100 feet away from the house lived a rather large Oak tree that was at least 80 feet tall. This massive tree was about 3 feet in diameter at 5 feet off the ground. The trunk was a massive 5 feet across at the roots.

I think I was lucky that the wind blew the tree away from the house. Not that it was close enough to hit the house (it would have been close), but there was a good chance it would have knocked down other trees that would have hit the house. This tree had limbs growing out almost as wide as it was tall.

Over the past years I have been worried about it falling in the direction of the house. I wanted it cut down when I sold some timber about 10 years ago. They didn’t cut it down. This tree had a 1 foot by 6 foot gash in the trunk made by a backhoe some 30 years ago. This week spot was exactly where the tree cracked as it fell. It took a couple of good sized trees with it too. I should be set for firewood for this winter and maybe next year too. I consider myself very lucky that it fell when there wasn’t anyone around. I should post a picture or two before and after I start cutting it.

Anyway, I did not hear the tree fall. We had two windy periods this week, Monday/Tuesday and Friday/Saturday. I’m assuming (since I didn’t hear it fall), that I was not in the house during the fall. I’m sure the ground would have shaken a bit when this one hit. I’m also assuming that it did not fall on Monday or Tuesday. I’m fairly observant and I thought I would have noticed this tree when I let the dog out in the afternoon. My guess is that it fell some time Saturday afternoon, when I was tending the gate at the Oktoberfest. It got quite windy on occasion with some heavy gusts. I noticed the tree on Sunday morning. I was also looking at a great horned owl sitting on another tree. I don’t normally see owls out during the day, so I wonder if its home was destroyed when the tree fell. And that takes me back to the hundred acre woods with Pooh and his friends.

The English language is a glorious hodgepodge of a variety of mother tongues. There are bits of Welsh, Dutch, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Latin and a bit of original English in this language. This is why there are so many ways to spell the same sounds. That and of course people would always spell the way they wanted to before dictionaries were invented. 😉

Since I have a very hard time remembering how to spell certain words, I am in favor of scrapping the current way of spelling things and coming up with an alphabet that allows us to spell words the way they sound.

I’m sure we could get rid of the C, Q and X. These can be replaced by S, K, KW, KS and EKS. Should there be multiple letters for the long and short vowel sounds? What about those the Th and Sh sounds? New letters? Maybe. The easiest to teach would be 1 letter per sound. If we keep everything close to the current looks of the alphabet, it would be easier to learn than the metric system. 😉 Just think no more I before E except after whatever…. No wondering if that was spelled with a C or an S or maybe a K. What are we waiting for. So to experiment, I give you the following (long vowel sounds will be replaced by double vowels and the Th and Sh and Ch will remain — No new letters on this keyboard.)

II was up laat tuuniit beekuz II fel asleep direeng aa balgaam. II wook up direeng thu last ineeng. The Tiigers wun. If thaa win tuumoroo, thaa wil bee the Sentral leeg champs. Goo Tiigers!!

Dang, that was difficult to type. Maybe the learning curve is steeper than I thought… 😉

Thank you sir!

I wrote a little blog on Winnie-the-Pooh, and my oldest daughter reminded me of the bear she liked. While I don’t remember reading Paddington Bear to my daughters, I do remember something about the little bear.

From the title, you can guess that maybe marmalade sandwiches had something to do with Paddington. You would be correct. I do believe that was his favorite thing to eat. He also liked to drink cocoa. Now, I’m not sure how well cocoa goes with marmalade, but he is a bear from darkest Peru.

Now as with all children’s books, the title character did not always do the right thing or behave correctly. He was always very polite, but trouble would occur. He did always try to do his best. Can anyone ask for anything more? Is this the appeal to my oldest daughter, a little bear that has a tendency to get into trouble?

Now of course if you know Paddington, you picture a bear in a hat, duffle coat and wellingtons. He almost alway had his hat , and received the coat shortly after he was found. The boots came later.

There are now books and movies (videos from tv shows) about Paddington, so it isn’t too late to introduce yourself to this little bear from darkest Peru.

Other famous bears (just to be fair)
Winnie-the-Pooh
The original Teddy Bear
Balou the Bear (from the Jungle Book)
The Berenstain Bears
Corduroy Bear
The Three Bears
Smokey the Bear
Gladly the Cross-eyed Bear…

Oh yes, and the Chicago Bears 😉

Which bears did I miss?

Ok, I found an empty draft of a post (dated 21-Sept-2009), and I thought I would put something in it. I have no idea what I was thinking of at that point (the draft was empty). So let’s talk about the word draft or draught.

Draft in this case means a rough draught or is that ruff draft or maybe rough draft. Usually a paper or other writing before it has been checked or proof read.

Of course you can feed your draft horses in the drafty barn, drinking draft beer while waiting to be drafted.. Huh? Or maybe you could be a draftsman drawing up plans to determine how close you need to be to get the full effects of drafting while racing for NASCAR. Me, well I could check the draft on the fireplace this winter while setting up a game of draughts to play with my youngest when she comes home. But I really wish someone would make a draft on their bank and send it my way?

More on fun English words at a later date….

I was driving along one of the back roads of NW Ohio yesterday minding my own business. Of course I was looking for the deer that will run out of the fields as soon as the harvest starts, but I didn’t see any of those. Now in the normal course of driving one usually expects to have their own side of the road. For some strange reason the driver of a grain filled semi decided he needed to drive down the center line. There was plenty of room for him on his normal side, seeing that I only had to get my passenger side tires in the grass when he flew by. As Maxwell Smart says, “He missed me by ‘this’ much”. The ‘this’ happened to be about 2 feet at most. Not an enjoyable experience at all.

So after sitting on the side of the road for about 1/2 an hour or so, I continued my drive to see my daughter. I really was hoping that I could relax enough to enjoy the evening and them maybe drive home. As noted in my last post, I was able to relax.

In my years of driving, I’ve only had a few close calls. Each one affected me in the same manner. My nerves were a tangled mess for at least an hour or two. Only one of the close calls was my fault, and my reaction to it kept me from repeating my mistake. Now I am talking about life/death close calls, I’ve had my share of little fender benders, but the big ones scare me. And there I was taking the back roads hoping to avoid the traffic on the more populated routes.

Well, today there are three drivers that avoided a major accident, because of the alert action of two drivers (me and the guy following me). I wonder if the truck driver even saw us. I doubt it, since he kept right on truckin’.

So, I guess I’m just saying, “It is great to be blogging today, heck it is great to be doing anything today.”

Drive safe.