Good Hair Day

Hey America! How are you? You look good.

Rest assured, I look good too. Very good. Amazingly good. I'm having a very good hair day, that's why. It's a shame that not everybody gets to have a hair day like the hair day I'm having. If they did, there would surely be no wars, no hatred. And like all great things, my hair is being misinterpreted. Instead of inspiring people, even my very own friends and coworkers are growing tired of my enthusiasm about my very very good hair day. I'd say this was the second best hair day I've ever had.

I've been doing well America, despite the lack of blogging. I'm quite busy. Ever since my boss left town and got a job in the real world, I've come to realize that I have more advisors than ever. As of the last count, I have four professors who have a legitimate claim to being able to tell me what to do. I'd say probably two of the four are happy at any given moment.

And I'm preparing for a trip next week. For 6 days, I'll be in sunny Mallorca, in the Spanish Islands, living it up, running down the nude beaches, enjoying my free food and vitamins, hob-nobbing with celebrity computational neuroscientists from around the globe. All the big names in mathematical biology will be there.

I've been running well, and I'm proud to say I've run every mile prescribed to me in the Hansons' Marathon Training Program that I introduced to you here. Maybe not always on the day prescribed, but soon thereafter, and every lazy morning was rectified by an evening run, sometimes late at night.

I've followed the old four-stage pattern that I encountered again and again during my six month running streak last year. First, when increasing mileage, everything goes well, and enthusiasm carries me through one week easily. The second week hurts as the increased workload begins to take it's toll. The third week is better, and the fourth week feels too easy. That's where I am now, feeling fit enough for the schedule, at least for this week. Next week, things take quite a jump in mileage and speedwork. I'm a little nervous about it all, but I expect the enthusiasm of the mileage bump, along with all the running on the nude beaches to carry me through to the second week at least.

Anyways, I'm incubating my cells in some calcium indicator, so I have to go now.

Comb your hair.
Keith.

2:04:26

Haile Gebrselassie breaks marathon world record in Berlin.
Read the full story here.

I had a feeling he would do it. He's so determined. He's determined to win the gold medal in the marathon too.

Rock on like Haile!

Keith.

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Registration.

i'm interrupting my workday to remind you that if you haven't registered for the marathon, you should probably do it this weekend or even today. It's at 93% capacity already!

I registered for the full yesterday.

Keith out.

building base

hey bloggers, how are you? you look good.

I was scheduled for 3 miles Saturday and 4 miles Sunday and I ran zero miles both days. It was Claudia's birthday so we took an impromptu trip to San Antonio and San Marcos. We spent a couple days paddling on the San Marcos river and eating fine foods on the San Antonio Riverwalk. Paloma made me an excellent New York Strip steak. Some mariachi played Malagueña Salerosa for us the next day at Michelino's. It was a very nice weekend.

But now I have some catching up to do on my schedule. Some people say you shouldn't try to catch up but should just pick up where the schedule is, but I think I'll try to catch up anyway. I ran the four miler on my off day yesterday (Monday) and felt okay. I think it's getting cooler. If I feel okay I'll pick up the other three lost miles on tomorrow's off day.

Anywho, keep in touch.
Keith.

procrastinators, it's time!

Dear bears, and chickens, and things,

Is Houston! Is Marathon! Is Time!

If you were procrastinating like me, I think it's safe to say that your free time is up. If you were thinking you were going to run in the Houston Marathon, or Half Marathon this year, it's now four months away and the hobbyjogging needs to get focused into something more disciplined.

I had this revelation about a week ago and started planning and looking at some schedules (and running more often of course) and it seems the marathon bug has made a complete recovery. One clue to that is that I'm reading about plans and blogging about running right now, and it's like 1AM in the morning.

I ran four times this week, which is the most for a couple months, and the cobwebs are becoming loosened and things are starting to float along like its supposed to. I've decided to try a new type of training plan, from the Hanson running group in Michigan. You can find it on their site : http://hansons-running.com/ or you can just look below:



As you can see, there's a lack of long long runs, with nothing over 16 miles, but looking at it, it doesn't seem like that makes it an easy plan. The Hanson guys say that physiologically there's nothing magical about the 20 miler, and you can improve the same way with intelligent strength and tempo training. We'll see. It's quite different than the approach I took last year, which was to run more and more, lots of easy miles, running everyday, if you recall, for over 6 months. At the end, I ran what I thought to be a very nice 4:17 marathon. So I plan a lot more 'quality' work this time. But this schedule also gets up to about 50 miles a week, so while there's no 20 miler, there's still a lot of miles, so it's not a clean quality v. quantity experiment.

But I'm excited about it, and it's nice to have that back.

Keith out.

badumpa da da, dadumpa da da da da

Hey America, how are you? You look good.

I haven't been updating that much, b/c I've been quite busy. I don't even have time to write out the "b/c" I have to abbreviate it, that's how busy I am.

I've been moving, or I've moved actually, everything is complete, there remains only a few stray boxes of miscellaneous junk that has no place that needs to be recategorized. The only idea I have for that so far is to pile it all in the corner and put a blanket over it. So now I live in the Medical Center, in the heart of Condoland. I'll post some pictures soon.

This weekend, Claudia and I caught Pulp Fiction at the midnight movie on Friday, so that was cool and the Theater District Open House was yesterday and that was very nice too. We saw the symphony and a scene from the Marriage of Figaro and some Colombian dancers and got some cookies and some cheescake from Artista, all for free, so that was cool. Oh yeah, and we saw the projection booth at the Angelika and the guy gave us all a foot or so of actual film from the Harry Porter movie. And I asked the guy if it was still a problem for the film to catch fire and he seemed to not know what I was talking about, so I guess he didn't see Cinema Paradiso.

I've been running a little. Not as much as someone who's supposed to be marathon training, but once in a while there is enough time and energy for a run. The longest was about 6 miles around the new place. There is some good running in the new area, so that's nice.

The only problem with the moving is how much money gets spent without really paying much attention to it. And with a frightful look at my bank account I decided that I would challenge myself this week to spend as little as possible. I had a twenty dollar bill at the time, so I decided to spend no more than that 20$ bill until payday on Friday. Claudia is taking the same challenge. Somehow though, we decided yesterday that 7$ on a giant burrito from Chipotle was a good idea, so it was almost half gone in the first day. It was worth it though, I loves me my giant burritos. With the burrito and some necessities from the grocery store I've got 8.62 + 1.71 that Claudia owes me so thats... $10.33 remaining. There's a 6$ monday special at the pizza place around the corner, and Tuesday is chicken day, with .89$ chicken at Popeye's, so if I split those with Claudita I can get by for two days on about 5$ and then I'll have to come up with something else for the next three days.

more to come...
Keith.

Tank # 2

Hi America,

Here's what happened with the frogs, and how they're all gone now. I think they are tree frogs, gray tree frogs, I think, which makes them quite a handful. They can climb straight up the sides of things. This is one we named sticky. He is something of a pioneer.

They are also capable of climbing straight up the sides of the glass fish tank.

So we prepared a second tank, designed for animals which are primarily terrestrial. Here you can see the flowerpot, with an assortment of plants, a food dish, and a bridge made of skeleton bones.

We tried feeding them bloodworms, which one website says they like, but I don't think they ever ate any of them.

But they had a nice home, I think, with plenty of things to climb on.

And some nice props for some exciting roleplaying games to invent. This could be the bridge to hell for example.

We borrowed some drosophila melanogaster from one of the labs to see if our babies would be interested in them.

They were interested. Very interested.

There is some video footage of this particular encounter. Check it out.

But there were too many frogs. Somehow, we started with 59 tadpoles, which we counted very carefully when switching tanks the first time, but then switching the grown frogs from the tadpole tank to the frog tank, there were 63! We always planned to set most of them free, so we did. We took all but four with their flowerpot to the Burke-Crenshaw park, by my house.

I think they're probably doing okay, there seemed to be tons of life around that spot. Hopefully they're doing some major damage to the fireant population that I encountered while I was there.

Anyways, Rock on.
Keith.

I've never been so proud.

We got them some drosophila from one of the labs at UH. This is their first real meal.





Rock on!
Keith.

Frogs!

Our tadpoles have been busy. Growing legs, then arms, then losing their tail and all. Here's what they looked like a couple weeks ago.


Some of them were starting to grow their back legs.


Their transition to froghood seems to happen by shrinking away the extra stuff, rather than growing legs and arms. Here's one that is in the awkward phase between poledom and frogdom.


When they reach this stage, with nicely shaped arms and legs, there tail gets absorbed and they become little frogs. It takes less than a day from this point. They're also very awkward looking at this stage. Especially when they try to swim. Their arms and legs are flailing around and their shrinking tail is getting less and less effective.


At some point, they all seem to come to the conclusion that it would be easier if they just get out of the water.


They seem to rest for a day and do nothing but recover. Then they are able to swim around like frogs, kicking their powerful backlegs like a frog is supposed to. And they hop of course.


Apparently, they also realize that not only can they walk and hop, but they can climb the glass wall of the aquarium. We had to seperate them into a tadpole tank and a frog tank that is covered on the top. They're getting to the point where we are trying to figure out where to leave them. Conventional wisdom says to bring them back to the pond they came from, but the tire-track puddle doesn't seem to be a very good option, especially because somebody else drove through it again the other day.

Anyways, Rock on.
Keith.

Last weekend.

Last weekend, Claudia and I decided to tie the bikes on to the back of the car and head down to G-town for a nice little tour of the seawall. We really intended to work out that day, I swear. Instead, we left the bikes tied to the car and headed to Schlitterbahn instead. The weather was beautiful and cooler than it's supposed to be in July so it seemed pretty fortuitous to be on the way to Galveston already.

After 3:00PM it's only 23$ and there's plenty of time to get completely tired of the waterslides so it's not a bad deal. They have many types of slides of all possible speeds. These are two of the slower ones, where you go down in a bigger boat-thing that fits four people.



Instead of walking around all day from slide to slide, they have a bayou system that floats you around everywhere so there's very little walking to tire you out.



They have something called boogiebahn, where you get on a boogieboard and try to stay in the half-pipe thing where they have tons of water streaming by. It's tough to try to stay on and to try to stay in the wave without getting shot back over the back end. It's fun though. I stayed on a little while and then got a little too close to the side and then I have no idea what happened but I was off the side and the boogie board was back up on the starting ramp. (That picture's just some random kid.)



Lots of fun. Here's some more pics.




It was a fun day and and the bicycles took a nice hundred mile drive for no reason.

Keith.

Tadpoles!

There's a puddle of water, made by somebody driving off the sidewalk on the university campus, and there's a frog that thinks that's a good place for her eggs. We saw a thousand or so tadpoles there a couple months ago and decided to raise them - surely we could provide a better home than a dirty slimey puddle. So we collected about 5 or 6 and brought them home. If you ever try this, make sure you get your tap water and let it sit for a couple days first, so that all the dissolved chlorine comes out because our first crack at tadpole raising was a complete failure and they all died by the next morning.

We were right about one thing though, the roadside puddle isn't much better. A couple days later it rained and the puddle overflowed and most of the other tadpoles got stuck out on the sidewalk when the water level dropped. A few days after that, the rest of them were dead for no obvious reason.

But then with the rains a couple weeks ago, there came more tadpoles to the same roadside puddle, so we decided to try again, being much better read about tadpoles and how to keep them alive. Here's a reference, if you're ever inclined to try it.

Here's some pics. They're horribly cute, and horribly entertaining. I can watch them for hours. There is some anxiety of course, since the first batch all died, and sometimes they do stupid things like get themselves trapped in the rocks, and when I spend twenty minutes trying to gently-gently move rocks to get him out and he goes right back in there 30 seconds after he's freed. Otherwise they're adorable.



I know!



Some of them are starting to get their back legs. There's one that's more advanced than the others, but not by much. His name is Leggie because he has legs.



If you stick your finger in the water they will cling to you and start nibbling.



And since their tank is just a wee bit cramped, they're about to get introduced to their brand new pimped out crib. I know! Just as soon as the chlorine dissipates and the plants bump up the oxygen level.



Rock on my chickieweemonkies!
Keith.

There's a movie called Once playing at the Landmark in River Oaks. It's very good. The music is great.

busy busy busy

Hey Bloggers,

I know I haven't posted too much recently, but I have been quite busy. Here's a photo-recap of some of the things I've been up to. First of all, I got a nice digital camera, which makes uploading photos easy, so there should be more pictures in the future.

My Mom came to town, and Claudia and I hung out with her for a few days. Here we are by that thing on Memorial. The dog belonged to the guy who took the picture.
We saw the bats emerge from the Waugh street bridge, and we also went to the downtown aquarium.
This is some kind of a crazy salamander. It has gills and legs at the same time.
There were little shrimp that will swim up to your hand and clean your fingers if you don't freak out like I did.
A couple weeks later, Claudia and I went to the zoo on free-day. It wasn't that crowded because it was pouring rain most of the time. This is a lion.
I forget what this was but somebody shaved it.
We also took some time to play a round of golf with some comically large golf clubs.

Armand Bayou Nature Center has tons of animals, 95% of which are gigantic spiders.
I dog-sat for my boss. A delightful little whippet and a sizeable greyhound. They look so much like my beloved five-dog and their mannerisms are identical. It was nice.
I had a birthday. I'm 31 years old now. I celebrated at Churrascos. I had the salmon, Claudi had the churrasco. Then cheesecake at The Cheesecake Factory.
I made some flautas that I'm kindof proud of. It was Emeril's recipe and it took quite a lot of work. But they were very good. Lunch today will be the last of the leftovers. It's a little sad to see them go.

But that's not everything. There are 45-50 new additions to the family. Stay tuned for some pics.

Rock on.
Keith.

Happy Birthday Freedom and Democracy.

Two hundred and thirty-one years ago, our forefathers along with Ben Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson, Henry Ford, and George Washington had an idea. It was a simple idea, that people should be able to decide who their leaders are and they should also be able to be different if they wanted to be different.

Today we can celebrate the birth of freedom. the birth of democracy. and the birth of the modern world.

Run an extra mile if you love freedom!

Rock on America!
Keith.

Four Honeybees!

Okay, judging by the responses, I take it most people would not watch the movie about the alternate universe filled with really boring things and people. How about a movie thats sort of a documentary about a bunch of people like you and me who get together and stage an alien invasion hoax and its a documentary which means we really do stage the hoax and all the people think its real and then the movie comes out to tell them how they're all idiots. Would you watch that one?

Anywho, did I run since Saturday? I don't think so. I've been quite busy looking for a place to live near the Medical Center. I live way out in Pasadena now because it is a relatively cheap place to live, especially since I owned a 90 lb dog and to rent a place that accepts such a large animal near the med center is very expensive. As you may know, last year, my poor babyboy passed away, so now it's back to the med center, where I can probably save a little money on gas and whatnots when all is said and done.

Also, I volunteered to be a guinea pig in a bird flu study. So that should be fun. Fun spending my four hundred bucks anyway! All I have to do is, get injected by an experimental vaccine, which may or may not give me the birdflu, write down my thoughts and feelings for a couple weeks, then go back for some blood drawings, and then I think another vaccine, and then some more free form writing of my emotions, and then some more blood drawings and then a five month follow-up. And they give me four huneybees.

Hmm.. What else would I do for four hunnneybees?

Make me an offer.

Keith.

Would you watch this movie?

Hi bloggers,

Hypothetically speaking, if I wrote a screenplay about a physics student who figured out how to open a portal to an alternate reality, and then when he goes there, it turns out that everything there is really really boring, and then he goes back and appreciates his own life or something, but then when the people there find out that our reality is much more exciting then they go crazy and chase him around a lot and try to steal the antimatter generator and it turns really exciting, and then maybe they realize that there's too much excitement already and they stop and then everythings okay, anyway, would you watch it?

---

Anyway, how is everything with you? I see from your blogs that things are pretty exciting. Several of you are going to run the NYCM. Some of you are living it up in Japan. All pretty exciting stuff. Mine too. A few weeks ago, my advisor figured out that science in academics sucks and decided to live like the jet-set in sunny California. So I kindof started a new job. I get to try to finish up my PhD at a school in the Med Center, while still technically a student at UH. The good part is that the equipment I'll be using is practically the greatest microscope ever created. Furthermore, students in the lab I'm in actually graduate. Sometimes it seems that nobody at UH actually graduates.

What else, what else... Still running, I guess it's been a while since the last update. It has been difficult. Motivation is somewhat low, and energy is on the floor. I ran Monday and Tuesday this week, and 6 miles this morning. So, back to the old slumpbusting routine - short mileage, running everyday, breathing the fresh air, etc. Motivation follows action, not the other way around.

Okay, I'll update more tomorrow.
Sleepy time.
Keith.

Are you an "old school" runner?

Hey bloggers.

My buddy J-money linked to this article in the New York Times about Modern Day Marathoners. Now, people run with less mileage, sometimes as little as possible. Many people opt for the "marathon survival plan" with one 16 miler, one 18 miler, and one 21 miler, with some junk miles here and there. And sometimes they voluntarily take walking breaks early in the race, before they have walking breaks thrust upon them.

I think maybe I'm a little old school on these issues. I don't like walk-breaks, and the goal for me is to be fit enough to run the whole way. But that seems to be the double standard: I'm not allowed to walk, but if you want to walk during the marathon, or even walk the whole way, I still think you're doing a great thing. What a hypocrite I am!

I even think it's okay for me to run if I'm a little bit injured. Minor injuries seem to work themselves out with a little bit of running. But for other people, I find myself advising against it, citing my 6 marathons of experience. :)

But then again, maybe I'm somewhere in the middle of the old school runner and the modern marathoner. A lot of people who think of themselves as an "old school runner" think that the people who take the walk breaks shouldn't even be out there, and should just run 5Ks or a distance that they're in shape for. Many of those "old school" runners rub me the wrong way. Those folks that write us slow people off as lazy and weak are out there too, calling themselves "old school." They don't bother me too much, they're just one of my obstacles.

Anyway bloggers, like it says in the song,

If you want to be me, be me
If you want to be you, be you
There's a million things to do
yeah you know that there are

And if you want to live high, live high
And if you want to live low, live low
'Cause there's a million ways to go
You know that there are

Rock on blogosphere!
Love, Keith.

3rd place at the CLFC prediction run

I ran the CLFC prediction run this morning and I wanted to win it sooo bad. My fastest times are always more predictable than an average time, so I picked 51:00, which corresponds to 8:30 m/m. And most of the time on my standard training runs, I don't even wear my watch, so who knows how fast I'm going. At the end, I finished at 50:37.

I started out with the rabbits, running with Jason and Theresa and Kevin and Coach Peter. When I'm racing and they're just training, is probably the only time I'll be running with those peeps. Also, I overheard that Peter also predicted 51 minutes, and he trains a lot more than me, so I figured he'd know his pace pretty well.

Each of us run those trails frequently so we know where the mile splits are, and Jason called out what he though our pace was, and he was being so accurate, saying 7:59 and 7:55, so I thought he must be right. On the other hand, Peter said later that he wasn't sure if he was joking or not. The group broke up at Pine Gully Park since nobody really knew the exact route to take and everybody wanted to go a different direction. I stayed with Peter since he was running the route which I always counted as the 6 mile route.

I think I ran a positive split, and it felt like I was fading in mile 4 and 5. Peter dropped back to offer encouragement to somebody and caught up to me with about a mile left. Coming into the end, I felt like we were a little on the slow side of 51:00 so I tried my best to pass Peter so I'd be slightly closer to 51:00 than he was. He knew I was racing him since he didn't let me go. I think he had a lot left in the tank. In the end, we were a little fast and since he was faster, I was closer to 51:00 and got third place! Whoo hoo!

With no visible timing methods, Jim and Hung ran within 13 seconds of their prediction time, and all three of us got a 25$ giftcard to the Runner's Link.

Keith.