Still running

Yesterday was a rather busy day at work, but I still managed to sneak in a 45 minute run in between the helium fill and the nitrogen fill. The rest of the day was spent preparing everything there for my absence. I was glad to be able to go for a longer run. I kept the pace lower and was able to finish the 45 minutes no problem. This tells me that my endurance has not suffered that much, only my cardio has been affected. But with 4 days of running in a row (yes I went today too for half an hour) I can definitely feel my strength returning. With my trip to California these next two weeks I hope to be able to get in a few good runs. I just hope the rain will let off for me. I'm going to have to find time to go in the evenings I think as my days will pretty much be filled with the training sessions. I'm really looking forward to all that I will get to learn, and it's likely that if I do blog over the next two weeks it will only really appeal to NMR jocks. But it's going to suck being away from my family for that long. Elijah seems to be developing so quickly that it feels like he will be ready to move out by the time I get back. As it is I'm just enjoying the weekend, and looking forward to the next one I will get to spend home.

By request for Melissa

I fixed our garage door on the weekend. It seems that I have found my niche as a handyman of sorts (it's kind of what I do at work too). Ever since the cold weather hit, the door from our house to our garage has not closed properly. It was fine in the fall, but now that winter is here things seem to have shifted a bit, in this case enough that the latch for the door did not line up properly with the strike-plate. At its worst you had to really pull up on the door handle in order to get the dead-bolt locked and unlocked, and the latch would not latch at all. It was easy to see what the problem was as the gap between the door and the frame was not the same all the way down, but I did not have any ideas how to fix it. A quick trip to the internet later and I was able to find a solution to the problem. The first thing to try was to tighten the hinge screws. When I did that I found that most of the screws were turning without tightening at all. So I decided to take the door off the frame altogether and start from scratch. I stuck matchsticks into all of the screw holes with some glue and waited for the glue to dry before nipping off all the parts that stuck out with a utility knife. Then I drilled pilot holes for the three long screws (the rest I discovered were self tapping which is why they kept turning instead of tightening) and got Melissa's help to hold the door while I got ready to attach it to the frame. It is a fire door, however, so that is not an easy task, the thing weighs a ton! After getting everything lined up I slipped a shim (in this case a cardboard coaster) in between the bottom hinge and the frame. This pushed the bottom of the door out a little and moved the latch up. When all the screws were back in place, I gave it a test close and it latched perfectly! Now it closes easily, and the dead-bolt can be unlocked without two hands (a big plus if you are carrying a baby in from the garage).


I really enjoy having these little jobs to do around the house. The week before it was a leaking sink drain. At the rate that they seem to pop up though I can imagine that if I did not stay on top of them that it would eventually become an overwhelming task. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of tools, so these things inevitably require a trip to Home Depot. Thank God we live close to one. Elijah is quite the little helper too. Helping to crawl all over my legs while I have my head under the sink, helping to moisten all of my tools before I use them, he does it all.


On another note, I went for another run today. Just 25 minutes again, but at a little slower pace. I need to get into running more days a week for my training so I figure I might as well start now while the miles are still low. The weather is great for it today too.

The holidays have not been good to me!

Well I can't really say that I guess, the holidays were great to me. At the expense of my body that is. The lack of running coupled with the overabundance of tasty Christmas treats have done a number on me. I definitely feel a little soft in the midsection, and my pants fit just a little more tightly now. The most evidence for this is from my running though, today I was pooped after a 25 minute circuit. Granted I started off a little faster than I should have, but I was eager to get back into it. Plus, I got new shoes and I wanted to try them out.


When I first started running I did it in a pair of Big 5 $10 sneakers. After those wore out, I found a pair of Brooks trail runners at REI on special for $40. They happened to fit pretty well, but I think I got lucky on that. I ran in those for a year and a half. This year for Christmas I got a gift certificate to Runner's Roost, so I went in to actually be fitted for a proper running shoe. They checked my pronation (the motion of the foot from side to side when walking or running) and took a video of my feet on the treadmill while I ran. The result of all this was that the Brooks shoes seem to fit my foot pretty well (which is why I got lucky, the other shoes I tried did not fit well at all) but that I needed a shoe with more stability to support my feet a little better. Today was my first chance to get out and try them on the road. I'm glad that I decided to limit my distance though as these shoes need to be broken in a little, but I can feel a big difference in the support they offer. I'm looking forward to ramping up my miles this month in preparation for my marathon training.


I conducted a little experiment on Monday night that really appealed to my inner chemist. I polished our silverware. It does not get much use around our house, so it has never been polished before (almost 9 years now). Needless to say, some of it was in really bad shape. Being the lazy man that I am I have never really got into the idea of buffing each item to a shine. I remembered some years back reading about a method that cleaned the silver electrochemically, so I investigated further. It turns out that the reaction is a simple redox (reduction/oxidation) reaction. Silver tarnish is actually a reaction of silver with sulfur compounds from the atmosphere. Anywhere you get humidity with suitable concentrations of the byproducts of fossil-fuel combustion you get tarnish. This pretty much happens everywhere, but if you happen to live near an airport in California, you really get tarnish! The reaction that you want to have happen to reverse the tarnish is:


Ag₂S + H⁺ + 2e^- ⇔ 2Ag(s) + SH^-


This is a reduction reaction (gain of electrons, reduction/loss of electrons, oxidation) with a half-cell potential of -0.272 V. In order to drive this reaction to proceed we need an oxidative process with a large positive half-cell potential. It turns out that the oxidation of aluminum is just such a reaction:


Al(s) ⇔ 3e^- + Al³⁺


with a half-cell potential of 1.677V. Balancing the equation we get a redox reaction of:


3Ag₂S + 2Al(s) +3H₂O → 6Ag(s) + Al₂O₃+ 3H₂S


Note that the generation of hydrogen sulfide gas means that it is a rather stinky reaction, but on the plus side all of the silver that was turned into tarnish is redeposited on your silverware, rather than ending up on a rag. So in order to get this reaction to go you just need to drop your silverware into a container lined with aluminum foil and filled with an electrolytic (i.e. salty) solution. It turns out that you also need to add a little baking soda to the mix in order to make the solution slightly basic. This softens up the oxidized aluminum on the surface of the foil and allows the bare aluminum to react more efficiently. Of course all reactions are not just about thermodynamics (as the designers of the Hindenberg knew), there is kinetics to think of as well (as the designers of the Hindenberg found out), so it doesn't hurt to add a little heat to the mix to help things move along. In the end, bringing a pot of water to a boil with a fair shake of baking soda and salt added, and pouring this over your silverware in a pan lined with aluminum foil, will leave your silverware shining brightly, and your kitchen smelling slightly of rotten eggs. This will leave you feeling vaguely suspicious that you are getting something for nothing, until you think of the huge amount of energy required to remove aluminum from bauxite ore, at which point you may think more seriously about recycling your aluminum cans.

Finally!

Christmas is finally here! (I know it's not officially here yet, but for me the long weekend has begun and marks the beginning of the celebration for me). It's been a few very busy weeks for me at work, and I really needed the break. I haven't been running in a couple of weeks as Varian has been working with the system pretty much full time, which doesn't leave me any time to myself. It has been a great learning experience though, and very rewarding work, even though it has been non-stop. Anyway, today I finally got out for a run. The weather has drastically improved since the last one, and it is 60 degrees today but windy. I had to take it easy though as I gave blood this morning. I really notice how frustration builds up more easily when I don't run. I've really got to make the time for it.


This weekend holds a lot of food for us. Tonight we are going to go check out the new Qdoba near us to have a little break from cooking. Tomorrow we are having ribs, which is one of my specialties, and on Sunday I'll be baking a ham. That's a first for us, so hopefully it will turn out okay. Merry Christmas everyone!

Christmas time is here

Well with our Christmas party a big success yesterday, it really feels like the Christmas season is upon us. It was great to kick back this weekend with our friends, especially after the week I had. The cold day on Wednesday was only the beginning, it ended up with a major flood Friday at 5. It will be interesting to see how next week shapes up after that. Thankfully next week is the last "full" week I will have before I get a few 4 day weeks for the holidays. I can't wait!

Take a few days off...

...and you feel it when you get back. Man, that run kicked my butt today. 35 minutes, but barely. I was going a little too fast I think. Nice to get back outdoors though after being sequestered inside for three days. It got really cold here this week, but now we are almost back to normal. 30 degrees today, and nice and sunny. Had to get one in today, I doubt I'll have time this weekend. P-A-R-T-Why? Because I gotta!

I should have known...

...it was going to be one of those days.


I got my first 3 am wake up call from the magnet today. It called to say that it was cold. Turns out the heat to the building went out. After driving in to see if someone was fixing the problem I returned home to try to get an hour more sleep. By the time I came back at 8:30, the heat still wasn't fixed and one of our fire sprinklers was starting to drip onto our spectrometer computer. When I went up into the ceiling to investigate I found that the pipe had frozen. Thus began the mad dash to get facility people in to turn off the water and drain the sprinkler system so that we would not get drenched. The heat is back on now, but for some reason the NMR room takes forever to heat up so I'm sitting here in my parka and sweater freezing my ass off. I have asked Melissa to pick me up early, I can't do anything else until we warm back up anyway. This sucks.

Okay, maybe I am crazy

It's 32 degrees out and there's a brutal wind from the northwest; I just got back from a run. 35 minutes, but I tried to run at a slightly faster pace today. I had my hat on to keep my ears warm, not bad actually. We'll see about Wednesday, it's supposed to be 9 degrees. Yikes!

Apparently I'm crazy

Melissa told me today that she thought I was crazy. Crazy like a fox! I had a long and tiring day yesterday and was not able to squeeze in a run even though it was a gorgeous day. Today we woke up to 3" of snow, but it is calm and 27 degrees so I was determined to go out for a run. It turned out to be one of the best. It was quiet and the snow cushioned every footfall. With a fresh white blanket of snow the world always looks so peaceful. That's one of the things I really missed while living in California. I found a great route around the local high school and even passed some cows on my way (that shows you how far into the suburbs we live). Could have gone forever but my circuit took 35 minutes. Now for some Christmas baking this afternoon.

Xmas FAQs

Okay, I rarely participate in these things but I could not resist. Christmas is just too important. Credit to my wife for starting this.


1. When is the best time to open presents?
As late as possible to frustrate those who are too anxious!

2. Have you been naughty or nice this year?
See above.

3. Real tree or imitation tree?
Real tree all the way, although I am embarrassed to say I do own a fake one. It was a good deal!

4. Favorite Christmas cartoon character?
Herb, the rhinoceros from a Claymation Christmas. Here we come a waffling!

5. Did you ever write Santa a letter?
I think only once or twice

6. Buy any Christmas presents online?
Not this year

7. Save the ribbon and paper or rip right through it?
Open slowly to increase suspense (see #1)

8. Sharing Christmas with family this year?
Yes, friends and family.

9. Ever ride in a one horse open sleigh?
No. Would you believe a one parent open wagon?

10. Ever roast a chestnut on an open fire?
No, I would really have to dislike Chest to do that. Who's named Chest anyway?

11. Favorite Christmas pie?
Mincemeat of course, is there any other?!

12. Favorite Christmas movie?
Scrooged. "Niagra Falls!"

13. Favorite Christmas song?
Currently O Holy Night (Josh Groban knocks this one out of the park), but O Come Emmanuel is a close second

14. People on your Christmas list; more or less than ten?
You put people on your Christmas list!? Weird.

15. Will you have a white Christmas this year?
Knowing Colorado, only in the morning

16. Do you believe in Santa Claus?
Of course!

17. Who would you like to kiss under the mistletoe?
Melissa!

18. Who gives the best gifts?
Santa! (see above)

19. Do you send Christmas cards?
Yes, begrudgingly.

20. What color best represents Christmas?
Red, thanks Coca Cola!

21. Do you own any Christmas music?
Can you say "Boney M"?

22. How many Christmas parties will you attend this year?
That I'm not hosting? 0

23. Does the postal worker get a gift this year?
Yeah, gotta give those guys credit. I wouldn't go for that whole neither rain nor sleet nor snow thing

24. Giving a present to a pet?
Yes. Will the pet appreciate the present? No.

25. Your shopping: All done, half-way done, just started, not yet started?
Not yet started. Yikes!

Blown Away

Good grief! I went on a run today after seminar and just about got blown away. The winds here are about 30 mph, which does not make the 33 degree temperature very pleasant. At least the sun was out. Regardless, despite a stiff headwind on half of the run I still managed to do my same circuit in 35 minutes. My ears are still red from it though, I need to get a little ear warmer!

Running update

I did get to go out running yesterday. It was chilly but sunny, so I ended up being hot by the end. Just a 35 minute trip, but it was a great pick me up for the rest of the afternoon. Hopefully I'll get out again tomorrow, but I have seminar at noon so it will be tough to find the time.

ESKIMOS!!!!!

What a game! I can't believe I got to watch my Eskimos win it in overtime. That was probably the best football game I have ever seen, down to the final minutes for the championship. Ricky Ray (the quarterback) really played a great game. I was thoroughly impressed with his ability to excel against a relentless blitz defense.



I thought I would add an anecdote to this post. The summer before I left Edmonton I won a call in contest for a TV station to meet some of the Eskimo players. We had no car at the time (nor could we afford the bus) so I had to leave 2 hours before the event to walk to the Eskimo house in Edmonton. I left the apartment on time (6 am) and got on the elevator only to have it break down with me in it. I wasn't about to let that stop me getting to see my Eskimos, so I pryed open the inner doors, found the safety release for the outer doors, and sqeezed through a two foot space to the floor below. I got there just in time for the event. In the end I did not win the tickets that were up for grabs, but I won an Eskimos baseball cap that I still wear to this day.



Way to go Esks!

Cable has not let me down!

I found out today that one of our HD channels is going to be showing the Grey Cup on Sunday! Woo hoo! That's worth the five extra bucks we pay for those channels. Last year I was hoping they would be showing the game in Vegas, but we were not at a big enough sports book to see it. So this will be the first year since we left Canada that I will be able to see the big game. To make matters even better, my Eskimos are in it. I hope they stick it to the Alouettes. I want to see them get plucked, all puns intended. Go Esks!


I got out for a nice run today, and since I bought a little bicycle pump a few weeks ago, Elijah was able to ride shotgun in the joggy stroller. Went a little longer than my usual 3 mile route and was out for 45 minutes. I'll probably take the weekend off to recover and try to add a little more mileage next week. I'm definitely feeling like I'm getting in shape again, just gotta keep with it. That will be harder next week when the weather is nasty. I'm going to build off this week's momentum though.

Happy Thanksgiving

It's Thanksgiving here in the US (Canada had theirs already in October), one of my favorite holidays. I actually like the date for the US Thanksgiving more as it is so much closer to Christmas. It marks the beginning of the holiday season and kicks off an entire month of merryment. In preparation for this weekend's festivities I went for a run yesterday at work. It's still like 60 degrees here in Denver and it is nice to be out running in shorts and a T-shirt in November. We are supposed to get snow next week though. My run was only 35 minutes, but it was a good workout and it gave me the energy burst I needed for the afternoon. It turned out to be quite a busy day yesterday for me, even though half the campus jiggered off early. I paid for staying late though as the traffic was terrible going home. What normally takes me a half hour took me a full hour yesterday. I'm glad I don't have to do any more travelling this weekend.



In past years Thanksgiving has been a difficult holiday for us as we have not had any family to share it with. But we have always had wonderful friends who have opened their homes to us in the true spirit of the holiday. That is really what Thanksgiving has become for us. Now that Elijah is here, we will be cultivating our family's Thanksgiving traditions and I want Elijah to learn the kindness and generosity that should be associated with the holiday season. Thanksgiving is about thanking God for the gifts he has given us, Christmas is about thanking Him for the gift of Jesus Christ. We give gifts at Christmas to show our thanks for the gift God gave us. The holiday season is about sharing what God has blessed us with with others. The friends who have opened their homes to us have demonstrated this perfectly, and I want to do the same for others.



Elijah is up from his nap now, so we are off for a family walk. Have a wonderful holiday everyone!

What a day!

It's November 21 and it is 60 degrees here in Denver. It's hard to believe it's late fall. I decided that if I want to get out for longer runs I have to find a better time to do it, so today at lunch I went for a run around the campus. I found that if I went to the gym at lunch it was an hour and a quarter trip just for a half hour workout. So running at work fits the bill a little better. I went out for 50 minutes and covered a fair distance, both on streets and on a nice gravel trail. I could tell I had not been on a run that long in a while though, at 40 minutes I was really feeling it. I gotta keep with it though, the new home transition has been hard on me and my pants are not fitting as well as they used to!

Party Animals

Well we were party animals this weekend. We had our housewarming party on Saturday and a good time was had by all. I got to enjoy some of my scotch with some great friends, and Melissa even got to play her "Shout About Movies" game. Food was simple but tasty and drinks were plentiful. Our first guests showed up at three and stayed until ten. I can't remember the last time I had that much fun. In the midst of the preparation for the party I actually had time to squeeze in my half hour run! I got out again today and hit the gym for a half hour speed workout. It seems like I'm having problems finding more than half an hour to run, but it's better than nothing at least, and the speed work is good. I got on the scale at the gym though and I can see I have some work to do before Thanksgiving, which is next week if you can believe it. I couldn't.

Two-Thirty

I had my dentist appointment today, and it was as pleasant as it could be with someone rooting around under my gums. Not much build-up of anything substantial. It's nice to have clean teeth though. They made me take an antibiotic before the cleaning though, which I have not had to do before. I'm not really happy about the idea of taking antibiotics for no apparent reason, but they seem to think that my heart murmur puts me at risk for a nasty infection with the bacteria that is introduced into my bloodstream during the cleaning. My doctor has spoken to me before about it, I just haven't really taken them seriously. This is just another example of something that was never an issue in the Canadian health care system but here is a big deal. I guess you get what you pay for, and that perhaps all the lawsuits here aren't all that bad if they are keeping doctors and dentists on their toes.



Speaking of staying on ones toes, I did not get to go out for a run yesterday like I was hoping. Melissa had her dentist appointment yesterday and I had to take care of Elijah. I thought I might take him out in the joggy stroller but the tires are flat and I threw out both of my crappy pumps in the move. I guess I need to get a new one. Anyway, I substituted a run yesterday for a long walk instead. Elijah and I took the *long* way to Safeway and ended up being out for an hour and a half. At my pace we probably covered 7 miles. All that fresh air must have got to Elijah though as when we got back he went down for a 2 hour nap. That was a nice treat for Melissa when she got home. I'm hoping to get out for a run tomorrow before the snow hits. Yes, it is 75 here today and tomorrow we are supposed to get snow. Welcome to Denver!

Car repairs

First off here's my accountability: I got to the gym today and went for a 25 minute run. I think the track there is about a tenth of a mile. I figure that because if I run at my 10 minute per mile pace it takes me about a minute to get around. Today was a speed workout so I alternated 2 minutes at a 10 minute per mile pace with 2 minutes at a 6.7 minute per mile pace. It was a good workout but not long enough. As I went at lunchtime I couldn't justify being away for too long. That coupled with the car trouble I had meant I could only spare a few minutes. But any amount of time is worth it I figure, especially when I'm trying to get back in the swing of things.



As for the car trouble, I pull into the parking lot and pull on my parking brake and the button pops off and flies into the windshield. So it took me about 10 minutes in the parking lot to figure out how to set the brake without the button. When I got back to work I called the Saturn dealer to see if they had the replacement part. They did, so I drove by there after work and picked it up. Twenty-five bucks and 5 minutes later the brake was fixed. I'm glad I didn't pay them to put it in as it was really easy and it would not have been worth the $75 worth of labor they probably would have charged.

Third Degree

As I seem to be getting the third degree from certain individuals, I will give a brief report on my running. The last time I blogged about it I had ramped up my miles to 20 in one week without introducing those miles gradually. I did end up paying for that and was achy the entire weekend after. Since then I have found the time to go running at least once a week, but not as much as I would like. It's a hell of a lot harder to find time to run with this job than it was before, so perhaps some accountability would do me some good. Last night, 30 minute 3-mile circuit, 450 calories burned.