Let's just say that 2020 has been unexpected

This is probably all my fault. I had a 14-year streak of participation in Marathon Sunday in Houston -- 12 years running the Aramco Houston Half Marathon, one year running the Chevron Houston Marathon, one year as a course volunteer. That streak was broken this past January. After months training as if I was going to run the Aramco Half again, I realized during race week that I had overlooked actually registering for 2020. Oops.

As soon as registration opened, I made a point of registering for the 2021 Aramco Houston Half Marathon, and my current running goal is making up for my mental goof-up with this event. However, it feels like my streak-breaking unleashed a tumult upon the entire year to date. Uneven response to  coronavirus pandemic and flareups of social unrest have spun the entire nation weary. Numerous running events have either been canceled or "gone virtual" and right now I'd say even a January 2021 race date is looking threatened. But I'll continue to prepare as if there's still hope.

Meanwhile, events have refocused life squarely on home more than ever, and I'm appreciative of my past decision to make my home in an Energy Corridor neighborhood where just about all my daily needs are nearby within biking range. Since transitioning to a work-from-home arrangement, my car use has dropped dramatically. My active time has been supercharged, and I take more time prepping meals in my own kitchen. Despite my new ritual of baking cookies every weekend, the result has been weight loss, which I consider a delightful natural experiment after years of reading about the obesogenic effects of car-commuting.

No promises, but I may even start blogging more often again.

Tropical Storm Harvey

Last Saturday, September 9, I happily took a big bite out of a Double California Style from Freddy's Frozen Custard and Steakburgers. Ordinarily, this would be unremarkable. But to me it fulfilled a two week odyssey back to normalcy after life was rudely interrupted by trillions of gallons of rainfall.

Back on Saturday, August 26, I was also craving a steakburger. We pulled into the parking lot of Freddy's on Dairy Ashford only to find out that they had closed due to the approach of Tropical Storm Harvey; the first outer feeder band had rained upon us that morning.  After finding another place that was open, we went home with that night's dinner. As I crossed Buffalo Bayou, I had no idea that I wouldn't see the other side of the Dairy Ashford bridge for quite a while. The previous night, Harvey had made landfall as a category 4 hurricane at Rockport and then stalled not very far away. This set up a terrible rainfall scenario where the northeast quadrant of the storm would begin acting as a conveyor belt scooping up moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and dumping it on us.

The overnight period of August 26-27 brought us three drenching thunderstorms that rocked us awake and terrified us like the ghosts out of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. After each visitation, the street intersection at our Ten Tree Corner would fill with water and then drain. Each time, the water would take a longer time to drain away. When daybreak arrived on the morning of Sunday, August 27, the website for the Harris County Flood Warning System was showing Buffalo Bayou close to top-of-bank.

Rainfall Totals on Buffalo Bayou @ Dairy Ashford. Chart taken from Harris County Flood Warning System website.

After a daytime period with a continuous drizzle, the bloggers over at Space City Weather advised that we were in for another "show" in the overnight period. We would see one more drenching storm that ended at 11 p.m. and our flooded intersection did not drain until around midnight. It was apparent that the storm drain network was straining under the deluges. But the worst of the overhead threat was over. By the morning of Monday, August 28, my smartphone had rung with 10 tornado alerts and 20 flash flood alerts, but we were safe. My yard was turned into a swamp, but the house itself was mostly dry, thanks to Gorilla Tape strategically applied to vulnerable areas. Experience from the previous two years (Memorial Day 2015, Tax Day 2016) had armed me with valuable knowledge in preparing for Harvey.

Buffalo Bayou @ Dairy Ashford stream elevation 

This is the point where things turned catastrophic for many on Houston's west side. Prior to Harvey, the Corps of Engineers was able to protect areas adjoining Buffalo Bayou by controlling the spillways of the Addicks and Barker reservoirs. Even the previous stream elevation level record of 70 feet during the Tax Day 2016 event still had the bayou within its banks. This time, however, the reservoirs were reaching capacity, and a decision was made to accelerate the release of water over the spillways. When I awoke on the morning of Tuesday, August 29, I looked out my front window to see puddles of still water standing at the mouths of the street drains. My heart sank. My own street was a mile away and many feet above Buffalo Bayou, but I knew that if I was seeing even a single drop of standing water on my street, it meant that nearby streets and homes at lower elevations were severely flooded.

We had sunshine again, and floodwaters had receded from nearly every other part of Houston, but the bayou-adjacent area remained inundated for several days. We were far enough away to be safe, but close enough to observe the breadth of the disaster response. Coast Guard helicopters were in the sky. Units from the El Paso and Fort Worth police departments patrolled our streets. A Fire and Rescue team from Lincoln, Nebraska ferried people out of flooded homes by boat. A steady stream of privately-owned trucks and trailers hauling watercraft turned our corner as they made their way to and from the disaster scene; that was the "Cajun Navy" in action.

In the week before Labor Day weekend, those of us who could were trying to return back to normal routines. Commuting was definitely not back to normal, though. Every north-south bayou bridge between the Grand Parkway in Katy to Voss Road near the Galleria area -- a distance of 17 miles right through the middle of the metro area -- was underwater. Motorists who depended on these bridges -- especially the West Sam Houston Tollway -- were making long diversions that exacerbated traffic woes in areas of town that were un-flooded. On normal days, the Galleria area is notoriously congested. After Harvey, gridlock on the westside was so bad I had dubbed it "California Traffic Simulator." One afternoon, I sat in in my car after office hours and realized that I could make a drive all the way to Austin in same amount of time that it was going to take simply to go home to the other side of the bayou -- a drive I normally make in a leisurely 30-45 minutes on local roads and bridges.

By last weekend, the outflows from the dams had been reduced to the point where the city and TxDOT were able to re-open nearly of our bridges again. I had my celebratory Freddy's burger. But my temporary traffic gripes are trivial compared to the immense losses of lives and homes. I will be looking for those small favors I can do to ease the burdens of friends, neighbors, and people I'll probably never meet in person.

Thoughts moving forward after the attack on the Boston Marathon

• My heart has ached for everyone affected by the recent bombings at the Boston Marathon. We don't know each other, but we're united in our mutual experiences and respect for what it takes to complete a 26.2-mile course, and in appreciation for all the friends, family members, and volunteers that make these events possible. As soon as I got home Monday afternoon, I laced up the Asics and plodded out four miles in a Boston T-shirt. 
• Be wary of fraudulent fundraisers that will inevitably spring up in the wake of tragedy. The Boston community has more than enough resources to handle the immediate needs of people. Be patient -- HARRA through the Road Runners Club of America are in contact with the Boston Marathon about this exact topic and there will be a legitimate channel for supporting healing in their community. There's no need to rush financial contributions -- the bombing survivors will have needs well beyond the days when these headlines recede.
• To those responsible for the bombing: Enjoy your waning hours of freedom; you will be caught. You've just kicked over a hornets' nest populated by lots and lots and lots of people for whom DNF is the most abhorrent thing, ever. If this is a matchup between crazy levels, you lose.

Most expensive trip to Burger King, ever.

I think it was when we got passed by the KPRC-TV Houston news truck near Lake Pontchartrain that it was made evident that our original vacation plans were getting blown away. While we were en route to Louisiana, the forecast track of Hurricane Issac was changed from a Florida landfall to a line that would bring the storm to meet us.

Arriving last Sunday evening in New Orleans, the city was already in shutdown mode. After checking into our hotel, we checked the surrounding blocks in search of dinner. At one point we thought we had walked into a still-open place, only to be told by the hostess that the restaurant was also closing early to allow employees to start hurricane preparations.

Figuring that there was no point in staying longer than necessary, we would be checking out of the hotel and leaving town the next morning. After travelling all the way to New Orleans, the lone attraction we enjoyed there was the neighborhood Burger King that we found still serving dinner that night.

Originally, we were supposed to be in New Orleans for most of the week, but instead we fast-forwarded to our second destination city of Baton Rouge, where we rode out the storm. Unlike Ike in 2008, which rumbled through Houston in the space of hours, Issac arrived and departed Louisiana like a loaded drunk taking his time to find the exit of a French Quarter bar. After 3-1/2 days indoors in Hunker Down Mode we were finally able to emerge to do a little sightseeing in the downtown area and watched the LSU football game from high atop Tiger Stadium this weekend before returning home.

I know most everyone says they "need a vacation after a vacation," but in this case, it's very, very true.

Top Ten Suggested Marketing Taglines for the 2012 Houston Astros

10) Hey, it couldn't get any worse this year, can it?
9) We've got one season of reprieve before we're stuck in the same division as Albert Pujols again.
8) With the power output of our lineup, you can rest assured that no one's 'roiding here!
7) We promise that you'll never see Orbit again.
6) Given a choice between watching us or the London Olympics on tape-delay . . . we win, right?
5) The Mayans would have wanted you to enjoy a few more games before it's all over.
4) We've got Livan Hernandez -- fresh off of his 1997 World Series MVP campaign.
3) Minute Maid Park: The perfect antidote to the congestion of Houston rush hour.
2) You did hear about the lower beer prices, right?
1) Did the Texans or Rockets win 56 games last year? Didn't think so!

Don't Do The Bartman: Playing a cog in the machinery that minted Team USA

Caution: This post steers into logistics and running nerdity. You've been warned.

My favorite action snap of the morning: Jeanne Cooper of Colorado splatters a mile 19 Powerade at my table. Cooper went on to finish in 2:49:16.

When I got the Thanksgiving-week email from the Houston Road Runners Association soliciting a little more fluids crew help with the Olympic Trials that would happen yesterday, I decided to inquire. Growing up, I learned that the Olympics were a Very Important Television Event that only happen every four years in far-off lands, and even the partially-jaded sports fan that I am now still thinks it's a special thing. So I felt that being even a small part of the process that will send our best athletes to the coming London games will give me a vested interest in seeing them succeed when I watch them from the comfort of my living room in about six months.

So how does an aid station for world-class athletes differ from the table, Igloo cooler and Dixie cups found at the turnaround of my typical neighborhood 5K? For starters, there are more tables -- lots more tables. The last thing you want to see is a slow rush-hour-like crowd stacking up around a small area. These tables get spaced far apart. With approximately 20 feet between tables, our fluids station would consist of 44 tables covering a five-block span of the turn at City Hall. (There were two additional aid stations elsewhere on the course, each with a similar number of tables.) The spacing would make it easy for athletes striding by at 12 miles per hour to pick up a drink.

The next difference is the personal attention: Most of the tables would have eight large dots spread out on them, Each dot was the spot where a specific athlete could expect a bottle pre-filled by the athletes themselves with whatever they thought they would like to drink at that specific point in the race. With the triple-loop course layout, the runners would meet us at the mile 3, mile 11, and mile 19 points. So, as an example, the two volunteers at our table number one were entrusted with the three bottles top-seeded Ryan Hall would fill and label "Bib 1, Mile 3," "Bib 1, Mile 11," and "Bib 1, Mile 19" as well as the similarly-labeled bottles from seven other athletes. (Table two would have bottles from second-seeded Ritzenheim plus seven others, and table three would have bottles from third-seeded Keflezighi plus seven others, This staggered arrangement would help prevent closely-seeded runners from reaching for the same table at the same time.) As the race progressed, the volunteers would be responsible for having the right bottle on the right spot on the table at the right time.

I suppose they decided that this task was too complicated for me, so I was assigned to one of the last couple of tables. My job was to make cups of Powerade available, just in case an athlete wanted something in addition to (or instead of) their pre-filled bottle. On the preceding Wednesday, I left an orientation meeting with a belly full of pepperoni pizza and these words from our team leader -- "Remember Steve Bartman."

In case your baseball trivia synapses in your brain didn't fire just then: On October 14, 2003, the Chicago Cubs hosted the Florida Marlins in a playoff game. With the Cubs leading 3-0 in the eighth inning, a Marlins player hit a foul ball just over the railing into the left-field stands. The Cubs' left-fielder attempted to reach over the railing to make a catch, but previously-unknown fan Steve Bartman deflected it and possibly prevented the Cubs from recording the second out of the inning. The Marlins would eventually score a bunch of runs in that inning, and angry Chicago fans would point at the Bartman "interference" as the turning point that cost the Cubs the game and eventually the league championship series.

"Remember Steve Bartman" meant that we had specific instructions to not become part of the action in any way. We were asked to stay off the course if there were athletes in the vicinity. Drinks would be set out on the table, but unlike my neighborhood races, athletes would be expected to pick them up on their own. USA Track and Field officials would be watching, and handing a bottle or cup to an athlete could be counted as outside assistance and a possible reason to be disqualified. And none of us were interested in becoming infamous in the running community for interfering with a competition that would be aired on NBC later in the afternoon. (Can you imagine the hate mail that Houston would get if one of our volunteers tripped Ryan Hall?)

In the end, my assignment went exactly as planned. My table partner and I served up a few Powerades, provided soft-spoken encouragement (no cowbell-level cheering!) and marveled at sports history passing us by. The frontrunners, as some of you may have seen on the TV broadcast, looked invincible. But even in the Olympic Trials, many of the back-of-packers looked like they were visibly struggling on their last pass by us (mile 19). One woman made a grasp at four different Powerade cups at my table and fumbled them all. And at the end, we waited around for nearly an extra thirty minutes for an update on one female straggler that was injured. Eventually we got word that she decided to drop out, and then we dismantled our refreshment stands.

Thanks for reading all this text. Your reward at the end is more of my pictures from my smartphone camera! (Click for larger versions.)

On Friday night, opening ceremonies happened in Discovery Green. The Trials hopefuls were introduced as a group, followed by speeches and presentations from Team USA officials and past Olympics greats. Trials competitors Meb Keflezighi and Deena Kastor were recognized for their medal accomplishments in the 2004 Athens games. "Elder statesmen" Frank Shorter and Joan Benoit Samuelson were recognized for their accomplishments by being named honorary captains of the men's and women's teams and were gifted with cowboy hats. It was like a pep rally for the Olympic Team.

The opening ceremonies concluded with a smile-inducing fireworks show.

My partner Rachel stands behind our ready Powerade table early on a chilly Saturday morning. This is the view the runners would see if they glanced in our direction heading north on Bagby Street. Eight cups are in the positioned in front for easy grabbing, and we had a bunch more in the back to replace them as necessary.

This was the table next to ours, with athlete-filled bottles ready to go. In general, the men didn't do much other than fill their bottle, slap the supplied labels on, and turn them in. Some athletes taped energy gels to their bottles. The women got more creative, attaching stickers, glitter paint, or in one case I saw, pink foam flamingoes. The "LSS" bottle on the corner belonged to 50-year-old Linda Somers Smith of California.  I remember this because when she drank and discarded it, it came right at me and landed at my feet.

The race itself didn't yield any real dramatic turns of events. The top seeds went to the front of the pack  and were the only contenders in the competition to secure the top three spots and be named to the Olympic Team. This is the men's lead pack passing us at mile 11, approximately 55 minutes into the race. In front is Ryan Hall, who eventually placed second. Dathan "Ritz" Ritzenheim would get the dreaded "not quite" fourth-place finish. I believe behind Ritz in this picture is third-place finisher Abdi Abdirahman. Way in the back with the blue cap is the eventual men's winner of these Trials, Meb Keflezighi.

The athletes arrived in waves that got further and further spaced out as the race progressed. This is the mass of women appearing after they made the turn from McKinney onto Bagby at mile 3, at around 16 or 17 minutes into their race. They are led by the NBC cameramen on a motorcycle.

And here is the front of that mile 3 women's pack. The Olympic squad would eventually become Shalane Flanagan (right, with blue top and her just-about-trademark high socks), Desiree Davila (red/yellow/black top) and Kara Goucher (left, blue top, obscuring her bib in this shot). 

Ever call in an order for "wildflowers" and have "wildfires" show up instead?

The other morning, I woke up listening to the update on Tropical Storm Lee and had a really good laugh when I heard that the tropical storm watch area stopped at Sabine Pass. It's like the weather knows exactly where the state border is located. Houston, normally gifted generously with moisture from the Gulf of Mexico, continues to be hit with the Texas Drought of 2011.

It's been so dry that my neighborhood reservoir caught fire twice this past week. When the air has been just right this summer, I can still catch a whiff of ashes from a fire that burned about a hundred acres just after Memorial Day. During this morning's long run, I got a look at a small pumping base the fire department has set up to fill up their tanker trucks with water from Langham Creek in case another flareup appears.

The run itself was a wholly impromptu affair with a lot of unplanned sidetracking to check out how the flora and fauna are faring. The 11-mile Garmin track resembles a rough sketch of an amoeba. I'm continuing my experimentation with fueling, and after last week's Sport Beans, today's choice was an old friend, Vanilla Bean GU Gel. I can't exactly say I enjoy eating them, but the packets are very compact and they still digest readily.

Just for fun, I'll leave the next few choices up to the audience:

GU Chomps vs. Clif Shot Bloks -- between those two, which should I take with me on the next long run? (The other, of course will be used on the one after that.)

And, what's your favorite stowaway on-the-run energy source that I should try next?

A South Coaster's advice for the Irene After-Party

It's a little late to write about hurricane preparedness, but as a resident of Houston with memories of Hurricane Ike still pretty fresh, I'll offer the following pointers for those who will be digging out of the aftermath of Irene shortly.

• If you remembered to "run from water, hide from wind" then you're likely alive to read this. It's going to be a costly hassle, but you'll have great stories and some of you are going to enjoy the post-storm days as an extension of summer vacation.
• Houses with landline telephone service and DSL might suddenly become the communications hubs of the neighborhood.
• If you were one of those who were prepared enough to get a generator before the storm hit, congratulations! Be considerate of when you're using them, though, or else risk having your street sound like a motocross competition all night long.
• You may be cleaning up "street salad" for days.
• If you see a downed cable of any type in the street, flag the area to warn others, but don't attempt to play Crocodile Hunter and attempt to touch it or "move it out of the way." They can have nasty bites.
• If you believed the story that taping your windows had any kind of real protective effect you'll be scraping residue off the windows until the next hurricane shows up.
• Your radio airwaves will feature law firm commercials targeting insurance companies until . . . well, I'm still waiting for Ike-related stuff to stop.
• If you think the real estate "bubble" has taken value off the top of your house, you haven't seen anything yet.
• Consider having a general contractor on retainer now, or be prepared to wait in line for one to fix your house later.
• If you've ever had thoughts of changing careers to construction, you're in luck!

Stay safe, East Coasters. When you're done playing with the storm, would you mind sending what's left to drought-afflicted Texas? Thanks!

This e-book will self-destruct . . . now.

Without even trying very hard, my new Sony Reader and I stumbled into the cursed fangs of the copy-protection serpent today. Last week I had downloaded a couple of e-books from local libraries via Overdrive to one of my computers and transferred them to my Reader.

This morning I made the "mistake" of plugging the Reader into one of my other computers. Sony's Reader software launched and immediately told me that it was not authorized to view the book. In addition, I discovered that both library books were erased from my Reader! (The titles purchased from e-bookstore sites appear to have been untouched.)

I was able to recover the library books (but not my bookmark notes) without much fuss by plugging back into the computer to which I originally downloaded and transferring the files again. But what if I was travelling and made this "mistake"? Sheesh.

Coincidentally, the Free Software Foundation has designated next Wednesday, May 4, as Day Against DRM. It's a campaign encouraging resistance to Big Media's abuse of fair use. One of the most blatant examples came recently when HarperCollins told libraries that they were capping the number of e-book checkouts at 26, after which they would be required to buy the book again.

The music industry is surviving just fine with iTunes and Amazon selling music files unshackled from DRM. Book publishers ought to lighten up on their customers too. Owning more than one computer does not make me a pirate.

Sky Show

The biggest advantage to running outdoors is that the environment demands that you pay attention, which keeps your mind engaged. Earlier in the week my attention was drawn to the ground. Wednesday's run on the dam featured several deer sighting, but with multiple snakes also encountered directly on the trail in front of me I was watching my every step.

During this morning's six-miler, it was just about the exact opposite. My eyes were scanning what was above me from beginning to end. Not only did I want to get my run over and done before the sun was up and scorching, I also wanted to experience the uncommon treat of a partial lunar eclipse. I got some pictures, but my digital camera fails to convey the true beauty of the moon's colors and light very well. The shrinking moon fell away to the west, almost as if it was being melted by the heat of the rising sun to the east.

When I began my run, I wasn't decided on which direction on the trail I would go. At the end of the eclipse viewing, my eventual choice was rewarded as I found a crew firing the burner under a large ready-for-the Fourth balloon. A hot air balloon is a simple pleasure made nearly larger-than-life and I stood admiringly and snapped a few photos as balloon and basket sailed up and away over the trees.

On the sun-drenched return leg of my journey, I thought the sky show was over, but it wasn't. A pair of nesting birds -- sparrows I believe -- are raising a brood close to the driveway right off the road. As I approached, I heard them squawk, then turn and perform a high-speed fly-by towards my head. They kept repeating this, pursuing me for about a tenth of a mile as I scampered past, waving them off with my arms.

Good luck finding a program for this stuff on any treadmill.

Running America

After hassling with more than an hour of Houston rush hour traffic to cover 13 miles to the theater, I settled in with a few hundred others in one of the Alamo Drafthouse's larger auditoriums for last night's Houston premiere of Running America.

This documentary follows ultrarunners Charlie Engle (Running The Sahara) and Marshall Ulrich in the fall of 2008 as they attempt to break a time record for crossing the United States on foot from San Francisco to New York City. Their adventure coincides almost too neatly with the fall presidential campaign. Remember back when we thought that terrorism and the wars on foreign soil would be the dominant issues of the campaign? Well, as Ulrich and Engle started their trek in California and Nevada, the financial crisis story takes center stage instead as the political fight ignites over the proposed $700 billion Wall Street bailout. The filmmakers spent a lot of time interviewing random folks they met in America's heartland about where they think the country is heading.

I found myself with mixed emotions about this movie by its end. On one hand, the actual running portion of the story was great. And outside of the closeup blister-popping scenes, this is a beautiful one to watch, with many great views of America from the road. But I did feel emotionally manipulated as the words of Barack Obama's acceptance speech overlaid scenes of Ulrich arriving triumphantly in Manhattan on Election Day. (Engel found himself sidelined with plantar fascitis earlier in the attempt and couldn't complete the mission.)

After the film, Marshall Ulrich and his wife Heather took the stage for a Q&A period. I had some fun while livetweeting some of their responses via my still relatively new Backflip:

• Ulrich lost only a net four pounds during the entire trip. He was eating 10,000 calories a day -- the same as his entire four-person crew.
• Colorado was Ulrich's favorite state to run in, because he's from there and does like hilly terrain.
• Ulrich used 32 pairs of Pearl Izumi shoes, not because of outside wear, but because the inners were breaking down.
• Charlie Engel is working on a future run across Cuba, after Badwater.
• Ulrich has a book coming out in 2011 about his experiences on this run.
• The best way for a marathoner to transition into ultras is to run a lot! (Duh!)
• Heather Ulrich accompanied her husband during Running America as part of the support crew. She admitted that she was yelling "quit" in her head numerous times, but managed to keep her mouth shut.
• Ulrich has "circumnavigating Death Valley" as a future goal. I'm not sure what this means exactly, but he said it's something that hasn't been done yet.

After the show, I bought one of the DVDs and got it autographed.

Cool: Going home with an autographed DVD
Not Cool: Discovering that it won't play in any player in my living room (three so far).

I have Ulrich's business card, so I'll be sending him an email to describe my problem. Let's hope his organization can make this right.

B-b-b-back inside

One of the side hobbies that sprouts from running is obsessive weather watching as race day approaches. The first ten-day forecasts including marathon Sunday in Houston started appearing yesterday. Weather.com shows showers and lo-40s/hi-50s for the weekend that I'm to run the Aramco Half.

It certainly could have been worse. I have genuine respect for the runners, volunteers and spectators that will show up at Sunday's USA Fit Marathon and Half Marathon in Sugar Land. An arctic airmass arrived yesterday and is expected to push nighttime temps below freezing for three days straight. Yikes!

For now, I've retreated to the comfort of the treadmill. I managed a ten-miler on Wednesday night. This included several breaks for calf stretches to alleviate some nagging discomfort from the same achilles tendon that gave me bigger grief earlier this year. Otherwise, I'm feeling pretty good. I think I want to sneak in one more in the double-digits before race day.

In advance of the cold snap, I evacuated my hanging pots (strawberries) and flower boxes (nasturtiums) off the patio. As far as they're concerned, this week will be a balmy one as they spend time basking in the fluorescent glow of the kitchen lights. One strawberry plant is even in the middle of fruiting.

I'm already thinking ahead to what I want to do with the patio when warmer weather returns. Part of me thinks that just sticking to flowers would make my life easier. The tomatoes did somewhat OK, but demanded daily watering. Leafcutter worms massacred my Swiss chard. The most successful food crops out there in 2009 were the green beans and green onions.

Well, the spearmint is a runaway success, too, but I'd like to find more uses for the leaves other than generating an endless supply of mojitos!

My own private highway

On Tuesday, northwest Harris County got pummeled with rainfall that rivaled anything that Tropical Storm Allison or Hurricane Ike gave us. So once again it was the job of the 1940s-era Addicks Dam and its reservoir to slow down the floodwaters before they washed over central Houston. Since the 1940s, however, suburban development has boomed behind the reservoir, and one of the consequences was the flooding of the Bear Creek neighborhoods. State Highway 6 in that area took on high water, prompting officials to close the entire section all the way to the Katy Freeway.

This inconvenience to commuters gave me a truly rare running opportunity. I took a run of 6.6 miles that was an out-and-back along the Highway 6 viaduct. Ordinarily, such a run on this major traffic artery would be virtually an application for roadkill status, but today I had all six lanes to myself, and I was crisscrossing them all at will. I got a good look at the floodwaters which were just below the level of the bridge, along with a lot of trash . . . and snakes. You probably couldn't pay me enough to take a swim in that drink!

It looks like the highway will be closed at least through the weekend. We'll see if the water recedes enough for drivers to take over the blacktop again for Monday morning rush hour.

A tax idea that just tastes flat

Some voices are now calling for "obesity taxes" beginning with levies on sweetened sodas (link to NEJM article by way of SciGuy). This, quite frankly, is insane, considering that our government has basically been using our tax dollars for years to subsidize the cheap corn that turns into the fattening high fructose corn syrup in those same sodas.

Of course, we've had lots of previous practice with this, having progressively escalated sales taxes on cigarettes while quietly continuing to subsidize tobacco farmers.

The image of a dog chasing its tail comes to mind.

Should the Rohs by any other name be spelled with ease?

Some recent words from Rep. Betty Brown of Texas have got me thinking about American identity. In short, Brown made a remark suggesting that Asian-Americans consider changing their names to make things smoother on Election Day:

“Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese — I understand it’s a rather difficult language — do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?”

There's a definite difference between hatred and ignorant misunderstanding. I'm hoping this was just ignorance. The use of the phrase "you and your citizens" strikes me as particularly unfortunate because (1) the person she was addressing at the time was named Ramey Ko -- not exactly a difficult name for pollworkers to grasp, even those educated in Texas public schools -- and (2) as "citizens" we're supposed to all belong to the same state and country.

I do understand that, for many immigrants, picking up an "Americanized" nickname makes everyday life and blending into the culture easier. But in the age of computers, it's not that hard for the government to track proper spellings and such. We stopped making up things to scribble by hand into the Ellis Island registry a long time ago. Brown's remark was just laughably rude.

Warmed Over Blog Bits for Thursday, March 12

It's been a while since I've posted to this blog something other than a race report. Here are some of my random CurrentlyVince thoughts for those of you still following along....

• Right now I'm feeling a bit disconnected from today's tech culture. I realized that I really like the feeling of having physical media for my recorded music and movies that I can hold in my hands. Just last night I noticed that my checkbook was nearly finished and felt strongly compelled to do something about it, despite the fact that I have occasion to write a paper check only a handful of times a year.
  

• So what can I do to reconnect as a member of Generation Tech? The latest issue of Maximum PC just landed in my mailbox this week, and the cover story is titled "50 Things Every PC Geek Should Know." Maybe I'll start there. Of course, just the fact that I still subscribe to print magazines might be a sign that I'm stuck in the past. Even the venerable PC Magazine went 100% digital this year.
  

• Chron.com's Dwight Silverman posted a list of 15 movies that he thinks reflects geekdom.

• The property formerly known as Town & Country Mall -- 13 miles west of downtown -- has been wholly redeveloped and rechristened as "City Centre." The name change alone expresses so much about the direction of population growth in the Houston area. The newest Studio Movie Grill opened there this week. Together with the Cinemark at Memorial City that opened last fall, the two movie theaters fill what I've thought has been a very strange void in one of the most affluent sections of the city.

• If you ever need to come up with an example of niche marketing, look no farther than Santa Fe Natural Tobacco, maker of Natural American Spirit cigarettes. I found an ad for this product while flipping through this week's edition of the Houston Press. (Gotta love those Press advertisers!) Do you know people who are both cigarette smokers and members of the buy-organic crowd? Apparently this company does.

• Fellow running blogger Pat in Arizona has developed a strange obsession over the timing chip used by Biggest Loser contestant Dane in his not-quite-a-marathon race.

• I subscribe to neither cable or satellite TV, and broadcast reception was initially very spotty inside of my new-to-me living room. In this digital age of television, I'm one of those who live on the edge of the "cliff effect" -- just a truck passing by outside could be enough to knock out a show. I've found success with hanging an amplified multidirectional antenna inside the window, backed by a double-layer of aluminum foil. Hardly high-tech, but this setup is soaking up enough signal to keep me from falling off the edge of the cliff.

Yes, I let a headline infuriate me.

In an attempt to wriggle out of the Senate-seat-for-sale scandal hanging over Rod Blagojevich, the Illinois governor's supporters have sunk to a new low by attempting to frame his appointment in racial terms. Blagojevich's announcement of Roland Burris as his appointee while the governor is being investigated for related corruption is enough of an affront to common decency. But for congressman Bobby Rush to suggest that the Burris' appointment should not be blocked because Burris is black is appalling to me:

"I will ask you to not hang and lynch the appointee as you try to castigate the appointer."

"Let me just remind you that there presently is no African-American in the U.S. Senate. I don't think that anyone — any U.S. senator who's sitting in the Senate right now — wants to go on record to deny one African-American for being seated in the U.S. Senate."

If I was a U.S. Senator, I would consider it to be my privilege and duty to block such a seating. I would be proud to have this on my record, not because of the color of Burris' skin, but because it simply is the right thing to do. When news of scandal first broke around Blagojevich, it was generally agreed that anyone that he appointed would have a cloud of suspicion over him or her. Mister Rush, the pigment possessed by that nominee should not change this.

I know nothing of Burris and his record, nor whether he would actually make a good Senator. But if he had a sense of decency, he would have turned down the offer and made himself available as a candidate to be appointed in a manner separated from the scandal.

In the year 2008, I reject the idea that certain political offices should be reserved for an individual because of race. Misters Blagojevich and Rush, you ought to be ashamed for attempting to "play the race card" as a smokescreen to distract us from the governor's own integrity issues. Finally, attempting to paint opponents as a lynch mob is misleading and profoundly disrespectful to those who actually lost their lives in real lynchings.

I'd prefer for my blog posts not to stray too often into politics, but this just seems like an egregious case of "not getting it." It made me mad enough to stay up this late and vent. . . .

Watts in your wallet?

During the fall political campaign, energy policy was on the lips of just about every candidate for national office. Everyone seems to agree that we need a better one in the United States. While the politicians hammer out the details, I thought I'd share some of my recent activities on a personal level. I'd like to think these will make a positive contribution by reducing the energy I consume on a day-to-day basis:

• The biggest change I've made was making the decision about where to move (within the Houston area). Proximity to workplace was at the top of my must-have list. Frankly, I don't really enjoy commuting around Houston. Saving money is a nice bonus and the results here are already quite tangible. My formerly twice-weekly visits to the gas pump have been cut in half and I've hardly used my EZ TAG. That's about a hundred fewer dollars per month that isn't going to the pockets of the oil companies or the Harris County Toll Road Authority.
• The "competition" in electric providers in Houston has been an utter failure in bringing lower costs to consumers. When I established electric service here last month, though, I did attempt to vote with my wallet by choosing a plan with a provider that would pledge to use the money to generate power with "clean" sources like wind. The price-per-kilowatt is somewhat higher than the lowest rates available, and the benefits aren't directly tangible, so I think this might be more of a hopeful decision than anything.
• I have LCD televisions, which consume less electricity while operating than old-school CRTs. But I couldn't help but notice that they feel warm even when "off." This is due to the fact that they aren't really off but in standby, waiting for a remote signal to light up. Many devices consume electricity even when they're in standby and not performing a useful function. I needed a couple of new surge protectors anyway, so I went with Belkin "Conserve" which makes it really easy to truly switch off power from a distance.
• I needed a clothes washer, and opted for a more efficient front-loader. Moneywise this is an iffy proposition, as the price delta over the more familiar top-loader is pretty big and won't be narrowed for years.
• I installed compact fluorescent bulbs. When I moved in, the "Hollywood" fixture in the bathroom was loaded with 60-watt incandescent bulbs. A four-pack of 9-watt bulbs -- which have equivalent output to 40-watt incandescents -- are about six dollars at The Home Depot. My rough math suggests that these will pay for themselves in about a year.

Happy holidays to all and I'll close this post by mentioning that my Christmas tree is illuminated with LEDs. Once again, this is probably a decision that won't see a "payback" for years, but at least the investment has been made.

Now I'd like to see the adjustments in my energy demand get met on the other side with adjustments in the energy supply. We've been waiting for fundamental changes in this area since the first crisis with OPEC in the 1970s, however, so I'm certainly not holding my breath on this.

Change

Unless you've been hiding under a very heavy rock, you know today's election day. The ballot, of course, is headlined by the choice for a new President of the United States. Constitutionally, I am eligible for this office, so if you can't make up your mind, feel free to just scribble "CurrentlyVince" as a write-in candidate.

I was one of many who took advantage of early voting. In addition to avoiding the lines, this worked out well for me because I don't even live in my voting precinct now. Over this past weekend, I changed addresses, so I am no longer reporting from Fort Bend County. Doing my part in "going green," I've moved closer to where I work. So instead of commuting 45 minutes in the morning and an hour in the afternoon, the trip is only 15 minutes each way. In addition, I've got easy access to numerous trails so I could potentially use the time savings to run more.

I would have posted something sooner, but I'm still waiting for the Internet to connect to my new abode. I need to find out why AT&T was able to promptly able to install my phone service, but not my DSL.

"And the fire in your eyes . . . keeps me alive"

The Cult has been named as headliner for Rock 'N' Roll San Antonio.

There's a possibility the event will hit a cap of 30,000 registrations.

This is going to be big.

I really should figure out a way to make a decent return to training.