5km Run Tonight

Yeah!  Ran 5.2km tonight...  As per Tim's suggestion, instead of trying to gradually build up to 5km, just give it a shot... Well it was really freakin' hard, but I did it! 

Man, really tired, also played soccer w/ the kids early, so had already had a decent workout, but I did it... Tracked the route on gmaps pedometer...

  ¶ 9:54 PM 0 comments

  read between the lines

Felt really good last night, went for a run.

Worked today.  Had a really good veggie burrito for lunch, from Burrito Boyz, f*ck that place takes a long time to make a Burrito, but they're good and it's worth it.

Came home, my family had already eaten, that happens when I work late, so I ate alone.

Took the whole gang down to Jack Darling Park.  It's a nice place, used to play on the beach there when I was a kid.  It stunk of rotten fish on the beach.  What a stench. 

My ankle began to hurt, it actually started in the afternoon, was hurting just a bit, in the joint, perhaps from the jog the night before?  Had I done something strange to my ankle or something?  Couldn't remember...?

Slowly, ankle got worse.

Limped along, to the park, I climbed on the monkey bars, I couldn't do that a year or so ago...  Still hard on the hands, but doable.  You have to go quickly, don't hang around.

Limped back to the car, ouch.

When to McDonald's for some ice cream, split an Oreo McFlurrie with George.  He thought it was pretty cool that the spoon was used to mix it up.  Jack and Henry each had an ice cream cone.

Back home, ankle really starting to hurt, still can't figure out why, then it dawns on me.  It's the mother f*cking gout.  Odd thing though, it's not the classic spot by the big toe, it's in the main joint in my ankle, big toe joint isn't bothering me at all.  But as the pain begins to really set in, it all clicks together, I recognize that pain.  I take an anti-inflammatory and can't wait for it to start working. 

I'm in the mood to watch a movie, so I pop downstairs and take a look.  Hmm...  Fight Club?  Apocalypse Now?  I decide it's Apocalypse Now - Redux.  I bought it from Best Buy for $14.99 like 2 or 3 ago, it's still in the freakin' shrink-wrap.

I throw the movie on in the sunroom, I've set up a temporary movie theatre in there using a data projector from the office projecting onto a bed sheet - about a 12' screen.

Apocalypse Now is an amazing, amazing movie.

I saw it for the first time while I was in college.  I was on duty living in residence as a resident assistant (RA), sort of like a 'don'.  It must have been a long weekend or something because the floor was unusually quite, most everyone had taken off home or something.  Anyhow, I watched the movie on the TV in the lounge by myself.  I remember when it was over feeling really different.  It's the type of movie that really affects you.  Well it affects me.  It's in the sound, it's in the music, the storyline, the feeling of the music.  The insanity of war, the insanity of the situation.  The pace of the music is slow, but that pace allows you time to think, that time between messages provides you the freedom and opportunity for you to develop your own meaning from the film, and this makes it more powerful.

Watching the movie again tonight gives me that same feeling again. 

I think about the insanity of the Vietnam war, I think about the insanity of modernity.  I think about how incredibly messed up the world is, how it can't possibly be any other way.

Earlier today I began to wonder if perhaps through man's evolution and development of advanced society with advanced ethics and morality if we are now, in fact, breaking evolution.  If evolution and natural selection is successful by rewarding the individuals who are 'fittest', then perhaps modern society with it's social safety nets, advanced medicine and altruist, charitable ways are in fact breaking that system.  If, instead of having weaker or unfit members of our species die out, we divert energy and resources towards them, that continues perpetuate the problem.  Just a thought.  I still think that it's a good thing to be altruistic and to do your best to reduce human suffering, to maximize human happiness, but it was just an idea that I had.

The anti inflammatory seems to be kicking in, ankle is getting a bit better, hopefully in the morning after another pill with breakfast it'll be almost better.  f*cking gout.  Just when I'm trying to get into jogging too... Argh, gotta remember to drink more water.

  ¶ 1:15 AM 0 comments

  Could we make Dinosaurs like in Jurassic Park? Through learning more about advances in understanding of genetics and biology and understanding the exponential growth of technology, I was curious to revisit the question of "Could we bring back Dinosaurs like they did in Jurassic Park?". I found this article which provides a fairly reasoned, objective answer to the question:

http://unmuseum.mus.pa.us/dnadino.htm  ¶ 12:04 PM 0 comments

  An Essay on Too Much Stuff This is a really great article... This is one of the topics I've been thinking about lately, I'm currently reading a book called "It's all too much...", this article has some really good ideas in it...
http://www.paulgraham.com/stuff.html

One of my favorite parts:

A cluttered room saps one's spirits. One reason, obviously, is that there's
less room for people in a room full of stuff. But there's more going on than
that. I think humans constantly scan their environment to build a mental model
of what's around them. And the harder a scene is to parse, the less energy you
have left for conscious thoughts. A cluttered room is literally
exhausting.

  ¶ 2:57 PM 0 comments