Dead Mouse Technique

It's been over two months since I gave you all my relationships update. The reason it has been over two months is because not much has changed. But let's see if I can come up with anything interesting.

During this summer, Sarah and I didn't get to hang out much. As I last mentioned, when she was in town I tended to be out of town, and when she was gone I was here. When we were both here, she typically had visiting friends. So we didn't get to meet very often. And we also weren't talking much either. This of course caused me to freak out and led me to texting a bit more than usual and trying to come up with outlandish ways to get her attention. I found the best way to get her attention is to leave her things at her front door. While I realize this has made me somewhere around the level of a cat or dog who leaves "presents", nevertheless it works. Any sort of backed goods or food in general will win her over. For example, one time I made pralines and gave her some, and later that day I got to see her. And like on last Thursday my Mom decided to tell me all her opinions about apple pie and that led me to craving it. So even though it was rather late to start making an apple pie I proceeded to, from scratch I might add, and asked her if she'd want some. She did, and even though it was 10:00 and she had 130 pages to read the next day, she still came over for an hour. The chief problem for us is that she is very busy, and also isn't looking to be in a relationship right now. However, to my optimism, she has told several other guys to back off when they ask her out or pursue her but she has never said that to me. And occasionally she does call me up first wanting to do stuff. Typically it's to work out, or walk around the pond, but she has gotten in touch about taco Tuesday.

Well that's lovely, I've made a new friend but this is could be a dead end. So while trying to see where things go with her, I have gotten back on the dating sites. Ugh. That's all I feel like saying about those.

Flora Friday

This article caught my attention. The reason being that since lately I am in exercise mode I was curious about the amount of protein I need. I am curious to know how much protein I get in my typical diet. I don't eat too much meat, except maybe for supper. But, as this article points out, there are many other ways to get meat. Although there is clearly a second motivation to this article which is really about helping out the environment, and it did make a few interesting claims.

What really caught my eye was this mention of "Meatless Monday's" at the bottom. Apparently there is now a growing trend of people abstaining from meat on Mondays. I will grant that this appears to be more of an environmental movement than anything else, but I find it absurd that the Catholic Church which is rather well known for promoting this practice (not just during Lent) since at most the 12th century, was completely left out from both the article and the "Meatless Monday" website. Yes the reasoning behind the abstinence is different, but come on seculars, at least give a shout out.

Dropping Stuff

This past Saturday while at Mass a little boy and his father sat next to me. The boy, probably between 10 and 12, came in first and sat to my left. He was well mannered enough saying "excuse me" before just barging into what was otherwise my entire half of a pew.

At the end of Mass, as we are all singing the final song, I saw from the corner of my eye him reach into his right pocket, pull out a large piece of lint, and drop it on the floor. So for the next few seconds I stared at him with a bit of a scowl as I continued to sing. Eventually he looked at me, at which point I looked at him, then at the ground, then I went back to the book I was singing from. He sort of shuffled his right foot a bit, I thought he was trying to cover up the lint with it, as though that might make me forget I ever saw it in the first place, but eventually he bent down, picked it up, and put it back into his pocket. Then he looked back at me, and I turned to him, broadly smiled and mouthed "thank you", and then I finished the rest of the song.

The lesson here is that we do not throw our lint onto the ground in Jesus' house. In fact we ought not throw our lint down in anyone's house.

I was very happy he picked it up. I think he'll remember that for a long time. I can still recall when older kids corrected my behavior or taught me things. But while that was a critique I prefer to give praise. Whenever children go out of their way showing exemplary manners I always try to tell their parents if they are around. Once a small boy ran ahead of me as I was going into Mass to hold the door for me. His parents got a good compliment. The other day as I was walking around on a small sidewalk I heard a young boy coming up behind me while riding his bike. I stepped off the sidewalk and onto the grass so that he could ride on through. And as he passed he said "thank you". His parents also got compliments. In this case I was impressed that the small boy was able to piece together that I could hear him coming, got out of his way, rather than he out of mine, and thought to show some gratitude for it. The reason I do this is because I think, for the most part, the only time parents hear about their children from strangers, is because of something negative. Ha ha, or at least that's all my parents heard about me! So I like to think they appreciate it, and I'm hoping their children definitely appreciate it come Christmas time.

Finally I will comment on this title because I'm nearly positive no one will get it. My memory here is a little vague on the actual details but when I was in middle school, probably 8th grade, I made some comment about "stuff". And my teacher got angry at me for not being more specific in my speech. Her argument was that pocket lint is stuff. I think I was trying to appear cool and non-nonchalant about something as though it was no big deal, and she wasn't having any of that. And interestingly nowadays I can't stand that sort of attitude. Anyway that year our class got to have a time capsule, to be opened at the end of high school. And in that time capsule I put in an envelope marked "stuff" and inside was a bit of blue jean lint. I wish I could say that since then either my maturity, or at least my sense of humor has noticeably improved.

Irresistabullish

Watching some videos this morning on a slow internet connection I made a discovery. On youtube videos during the loading there is a little circle of dots that goes around and around. But if you click one of your arrows keys it takes off and all of a sudden your playing a game of worms where you are a worm and you have to eat the pellets! It moves pretty quick too so it's challenging for me. You can try it yourself on the below video.

Sunny Annoyance

Window washing is a tricky chore. Even before getting started a cleaner needs to be chosen and there are a lot of cleaners to choose from. For example there are window cleaners for house windows and window cleaners for car windows. To me it's all glass, so I would think only one cleaner ought to be needed. The other tricky problem is that the cleaner I use to wash my mirrors is not the same as my window cleaner. It seems to me like they should be doing very similar actions, but apparently they are differently formulated. So just going to the store and picking out a good window cleaner can be quite the challenge.

Recently I washed my windows, and, running low on my old cleaner, I had to go and make the decision of what product to get. In the end I sided with the original one I had been using because it has ammonia in it. I have been told by Mom's, the world's largest authority on cleaning, that ammonia is great for chasing away bugs. Where I live I have a ton of spiders. I bat down their webs and the next day it will look like I was never even there. Fortunately they stay outside for the most part, but nevertheless I don't like being hit in the face with a web everytime I venture outside.

After selecting a cleaner you then have to select a fabric. Long ago I heard newspaper is the way to go. In fact I'm told the best way to wash car windows is to use Diet Coke and newspapers. Apparently the acid in the coke will eat through all your grim on the windows. Don't use regular Coke though because the natural sugar will make a syrupy mess. Anyhow, I wasn't about to use any pop whatsoever on my windows, considering I already have a bug problem. I don't think ants are going to take the Pepsi challenge on the fact that I used Diet rather than regular. The newspaper however is intriguing. I've never used that before but imagine it would be difficult to work with. It's not exactly as free flowing as a towel and it doesn't seem like it would be very absorptive. But unlike towels it probably wouldn't leave fuzz everywhere. Rags can work, but I find I need a lot of them because once they get soaked through you can't use them for drying. So I used paper towels. Not very environmental I know. The other option is to use a squeegee but my windows are in small panes, and I can't one of them inside the boundaries of the pane.

Okay cleaner check, fabric check. Now I'm ready to clean. And what a breeze it was. I sprayed my cleaner, wiped it off, and that section of window looked great. Next section, same process, it too now looks great. Then I step back to take a look at my work so far. But uh-oh, even though just one minute ago my first section looked great now I'm seeing streaks. So now I have to go back and really push hard with a fresh paper towel to get rid of them. But their presence seems odd. After all just a minute ago I had no streak. And now I see them on the second section I worked. And all this hard rubbing is starting to make this chore suddenly much more difficult and frustrating. Plus you can't always see the streaks. Sometimes you have to orient yourself in odd positions. Like you finally get the windows done, go back in, put everything away, and then see from the inside looking out that it appears all you've done is simply spread a foggy film over all your windows.

Finally I had all the streaks under control and was ready to call it quits. At this point I called my Mom because I knew she'd be so proud I washed my windows. When I told her about the streaks she said the problem was that I washed them in the sun. That was something I didn't know. So on this tutorial Thursday let us all learn that windows should not be washed in direct sunlight because otherwise you will get streaks. There are other chores you would be best served by not doing in direct sunlight. Applying car wax is one such chore. You should always park your car in the shade when applying car wax.

Even though the simple chore turned into a rather laborious process, the results were worth it. If you haven't washed your windows in awhile and if they have grim on them you might be used to looking through them as they are. But at least for me the difference between my now clean ones and the grimy version is incredibly large. In fact a few years back I gave a speech for a retreat and used this process of cleaning windows as an analogy for cleaning our souls. Anyway, the difference was spectacular and now I'm very happy everytime I look out of them.

The cleaning took place during the middle of my afternoon. The very next morning, I had brand new spider webs up over my doorway. The ammonia did not run them off.

Keep on Running

Over the past five or so weeks I've taken to jogging. I've been doing it fairly regularly and get out a few times a week. The first time I did this I wanted to do two laps around my apartment complex. This is right around two miles. I remember getting through the first lap okay, but I needed to walk for parts of the second. I tried to keep the walking at a bare minimum. Just enough to ensure I wouldn't have a heart attack. The next morning my legs were in a good deal of pain. But what surprised me was when I tried it again about a week later. This time I was able to get through the two laps much easier and didn't have to stop to walk. The amount of improvement between those two times was enough to make me want to see how far this could go.

For the most part I still do two laps, and I try to get them in at around 20 minutes. So ten minute miles. I have no idea how this compares to others, but it's what I shoot for. Just yesterday I was able to do three laps and got them in at around 29 minutes. And that was with stopping to tie my shoes during the first lap. So I'm still improving which is good. That was one of the reasons why I started. I wanted to get my stamina up so that when I play tennis I can go strong for a much longer time period. The time it takes me is not my primary concern, but it is fun trying to sprint just a little longer or set a slightly faster pace. I would have prefered to get this exercise from tennis itself, but unfortunately I do not play often or long enough to get much improvement.

When I started jogging I would throw on whatever old shoes I had lying around. This caused blisters and my legs hurt a lot. The blisters I assumed were from using improper shoes but the leg pain was more troublesome. I think I felt more confident of my leg strength and assumed the shoes were causing the pain. But in reality I believe I just hadn't as much leg muscle as I thought and I needed to build it up. So then I started adding much more protein to my diet. Now, after yesterday's three laps, my legs don't hurt nearly as much anymore. Even when I do a sprint at the end I can't get them hurting as much.

Last week I decided that maybe I am making a habit of this and that I should get a proper pair of shoes. So I went to a local running store with my old walking shoes. I brought my old shoes so the clerk could look at the wear on them and get an idea of how I walk and run and then know what sort of running shoe would best suit me. It was a pretty simple process and before I knew it I had a pair of shoes. There was a guy next to me getting shoes too. His clerk asked him if he was running for a cause. The guy said he was running for St. Jude's and that he was doing 30 miles. It sounded like he meant that in one day, but I've since been told it is probably 15 miles spread over two days. Either way, at the time I couldn't jog for 30 minutes, so 30 miles seemed and still seems mighty impressive.

The new shoes have prevented the blisters but my legs still get weak so that's why I feel I need to get them stronger.

I've been using the jogging to improve my tennis but there is another reason why I've been jogging. Basically it has to do with balance. I don't exercise that much, and have a rather sedinatary job. So jogging regularly has been one concrete way I could bring exercise into my life. I feel there are a number of things people need to have a balanced lifestyle. Work, hobbies/relaxation time, spiritual growth, exercise, socialness/friends/ and volunteering. Right now my two areas in need of greatest improvement are exercise and volunteering. And those two lacking areas have been bothering me for sometime now. The jogging helps, but I want to add more strengthing, so the other area of exercise I want to add is rock climbing. First off rock climbing rocks. It is a ton of fun. Also rock climbers have the body of David so that's pretty cool too. As for volunteering, well that's coming.

Finally, and in a most fitting way, let us all wish WAM a good run later this week. She's going to be in a 5K.