Einstein On Falling In Love

A while back I had another blog that was mostly motivational quotes and I miss that, so I'll be sharing quotes here and on Twitter.com. I have recently been sharing quotes on Twitter, so for my Tweets, this is number 101. For those following my blog, this is number ONE. To see previous quotes, you can click on the title of this post and scroll down my Twitter profile. Here is the love quote:

"Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love."

Albert Einstein

I found this quote at ThinkExist.com.


Keep Walking!

Great Retreat, Healthy Honey Now Walking

Our church had the most attendees ever at Forest Home last weekend - around 420 people and lots of kids. Our speaker, Jim Burns, had a great acrostic for maintaining/improving relationships - AWE. AWE stands for affection, warmth and encouragement. I really appreciated when he said, (my paraphrase) "If you have reservations about affection, I have three words for you. Get. Over. It." I agree wholeheartedly. Human beings need that good stuff. Jim Burns's stuff can be found at: HomeWord.com. I find him to be much more conservative than me and still, he's got something to say that's truly worth hearing.

My honey and I worked KP for all the meals. I was the big enchilada for KP and got good reviews. Just like the retreat itself, we had the most people I've ever seen setting up and cleaning up at meals. They made it so easy to lead. The KP'ers took initiative and hardly a discouraging word was heard.

Marianne and I have been playing a game we call Password. It's been a long time since I've seen that show, so it may not be exactly Password according to Hoyle(?). One person thinks of a word and then gives a one word clue. The other person gets one guess and then the "giver" gives another one word clue to the "receiver". Sometimes you get the word on the first try like when I said "Redenbacher" and she guessed the word was popcorn. She only took two word clues, sidewalk and concrete, to get pavement. (Guess which word took her six clues?!) We even played Password as we were falling asleep.

Monday morning after we got home I weighed myself and found things going in the right direction. I was down to 117.1 kilos vs. 118.5 last week which means a loss of approximately 3 pounds. Tuesday was our anniversary and we started off by walking almost three miles at Batiquitos lagoon with our dog, Mellow. It was great to spend the day together and nice of our country to have a holiday on our anniversary. (A Veteran's Day aside - Marianne's brother-in-law was in Vietnam and her grandfather was in the horse cavalry(!) in WWI. We are not quite sure if we got the whole story about her uncle who we were told died after hostilities officially ended in Korea when her mom was a kid. My dad was in the Navy, but didn't see action in Brownsville, Texas and my uncle Fred served, too. Kicked my dad across the room with only his reflexes coming out of a nap once, but that's another story. My brother almost went to Vietnam. I'm pretty sure he got a low-medium draft number and then the war was over.)

We went out to dinner at Outback Steakhouse and shared some mild wings and the Alice Springs Chicken. More Password with just the two of us. The Alice Springs Chicken works for the high protein/low card lifestyle if you substitute broccoli, which they serve crisp, the way we like it. Oh, remember not to use that sugary dipping sauce to keep the carbs low.

All of the above and technology problems combined with Palomar College being closed MONDAY meant that I didn't get back online until yesterday. You should be hearing from me more often in the near future. Keep walking.

Forest Home Weekend

Let's see. How to start...

Sunday of this week I weighed myself and it was not great, especially keeping the whole year in mind. I weighed 118.5 kilos. I started the year at 123.2, so there is SOME progress. (It's definitely better than going backwards.) The difference between those two measurements is 4.7 kilos, so multiplying by 2.2 we get 10.34 pounds. That's 1 pound per month. I'm back on high protein/lo carb and expect to get some walking in this weekend at Forest Home. Forest Home is a christian camp in the town of Forest Falls, which is above Redlands. My wife, Marianne, and I are doing KP this weekend at Solana Beach Presbyterian's all-church retreat as we usually do and that will keep us on our feet a bit. There's quite a bit of walking back and forth in the normal course of the retreat. I've never really kept track before so I will be curious to see how much walking we do actually.

I do believe it's time to modify the goal for the year. With all that's going on in life I'm not prepared to lose nearly 40 pounds in under two months. That's ok. I'm in this for the long haul as I hope you are not matter whether your goals concern physical health or something else. I had a physical a couple months ago and everything was in the normal range. My hdl cholesterol (the good kind) was slightly low, but nothing to be concerned about.

I think 15 pounds from here to the end of the year is doable. I've done it before as I'm sure many of you have. I'll be thinking about 15 or 20 over the weekend.

I'm excited about the new president and excited to be going on retreat. "See" you when I get back. Keep walking. Keep moving ahead.

Go Vote!

HelenKay Dimon said it concisely. Go vote!

Visit her blog:

HelenKayDimon.com

Keep walking.

Overcast Walk In Solana Beach

My wife and I took our son to soccer practice and then Rubio's Fiesta Salad. Next stop - the beach! We haven't yet gotten into the habit of checking the high and low tide. It was definitely high tide and the sky was gray. We walked about two-thirds as far as last week as the water was rising and crashing on the rocks, leaving us no sand to work with.

We saw half a dozen sandpipers who seemed to be a group and a little later two of them might have perceived us as following them. If they had bigger brains they might have thought, "What do these people want? We take several steps and they keep coming. We can't even be a full meal for either one of them, let alone both of them! Help!"

Marianne and I did manage to get in 2.5 miles by walking the neighborhood when we left the beach. We saw a guy with a bicycle decked out in pink "fur". Last week he was wearing a hat so we didn't notice his matching pink hair. Definitely stood out on the beach. Seemed pretty harmless.

Keep walking, everyone!

Walking Batiquitos and Twitter

My wife and I have been walking at Batiquitos lagoon recently and in case you live in San Diego County or you're willing to come here, remember Batiquitos. I really haven't walked there since I was a kid with my older brothers and there was no Four Seasons or any houses to speak of. My dad used to refer to this as "the slough" and we used to smell it miles away in Leucadia in the 70's. I think that odor doesn't happen as often now, but then, I live farther away from the water as a dad than I did as a son.

Sunday morning we walked three miles and last night at dusk we did two. I remembered back to a time when the falling darkness would have been mucho scary. Lots of people on a Sunday morning. As the stars came out Tuesday evening, not so much - we found ourselves alone for the final leg back out of the dark "forest". Either way it feels good to walk. Maybe we'll walk on the beach tonight. We'll see.

I have been following people and vice-versa on Twitter recently. Some of those folks are walkers, too. It's good to be connected to other walkers, exercise junkies and such so we can keep each other encouraged and motivated. You can click on the title of this post to see my profile on Twitter. I hope to see you there.

Over Two Miles Before 6 AM

Last night I did my Wednesday night tutoring at Reality Changers and I was inspired by the efforts of some of the kids I know. One guy picked up "The Dialogues of Plato" for pleasure reading! Another student has decided to take a trip with People to People's Student Ambassadors and it's exciting to see them expand their horizons. I guess my inspiration carried over to my sleep time and my brain woke up a little after 4:30 thinking about the same stuff. If you are in San Diego or the North Coast portion of San Diego County and you would like that to tutor/mentor senior high students, give me a shout.

After laying in bed for 15 minutes or so I decided to take Mellow for a walk and he was one enthusiastic retriever. We live in a pretty safe neighborhood but it's nice to have a dog with you walking that early. We walked just over two miles while I counted in my head to double check the landmarks every quarter mile. I know from walking the track at Palomar College that just under 500 of my steps is approximately a quarter mile. I got back before 5:45 and surprised my wife with mushrooms and scrambled eggs with Trader Joe's green salsa.

Last time I mentioned "that's another post" and late in the day my wife and I walked two miles at Solana Beach again. This was the same day that I had done the four miles plus earlier in the day and I was a little tired near the end. I didn't quite lift my foot high enough as we were exiting the beach and I ran into the hardest lump of seaweed I ever remember encountering. Almost broke my fourth toe on my left foot and it's a nice rainbow of purple now. That incident on what should have been the easiest walk of the day has me sort of resting my foot. I walked over a mile yesterday and it's not quite as bad today, but it's much more painful when I walk barefooted as I was on the beach. Wear shoes or watch out!

Walking the Dog Four Miles (Twice)

Yesterday I started out for a walk with our dog, Mellow, and decided to keep going. Recently I've only taken individual walks in the one to two mile range, but I decided to be more adventurous. If you know Carlsbad - San Marcos - Vista, I walked down Alga to Melrose and down past Poinsettia to whatever the next street is and back with side trips in my neighborhood. My dog was grateful and my body knew I had gotten some exercise after four miles.

This morning I decided to be a bit more adventurous and walked the same route almost to Palomar Airport Road where I cut through the business park and went back via El Fuerte to Unicornio and then Xana. On the way down El Fuerte I discovered a walking trail that I didn't know existed. The trail is asphalt and it mostly parallels the road but dips into a canyon and that allowed me freedom to let my dog roam a little. I wasn't sure if this was an old dead end that would have me backtracking and I knew I was already past the three mile mark. Would this be an even longer walk than I anticipated? Mellow and I met another guy and his dog along the way and eventually the trail led back up to the road, but not before we noticed the 15 degree (at least) temperature difference at the canyon bottom. This round trip was 4.25 miles. I walked more through the rest of the day, but that's another post.

Solana Beach vs. Encinitas

When I was young I lived with my family in Encinitas and Leucadia. We moved from Melrose in Encinitas to Patty Lane in Leucadia when I was five. We were there until my dad, the country boy from Illinois, thought it was too crowded on the coast. (That was 1976! He "escaped" us to the wilds of Valley Center. Talk about bad timing in the real estate market...long story short...the house he bought for 37,500 in 1968 he sold for 62,500 and within 18 months it had been resold three times. In early 1978 it sold for $198,000!) I remember not making that much of a distinction between Encinitas and Leucadia back then as both had the same zip code. Even today I'm amused and sometimes annoyed at the smaller and smaller areas around here giving themselves a name. (Part of the branding revolution, I guess.) I was a number-oriented kid and still am. I follow politics and I really like FiveThirtyEight.com, which focuses on the numbers involved in politics and polling.

Lately I've been really noticing that my walking numbers have been down. I need to get a new pedometer. You may have experienced this, too. I find that the accurate measurement - that counter you can check whenever you want - really keeps me motivated. Some may say that it's just one strategy, but it is definitely a strategy that works for me. Find the strategies that work for you. The other day I was counting steps in my head again while walking on the beach with my honey.

We had decided to go to Solana Beach because there was no parking anywhere remotely close to Moonlight Beach in Encinitas. It was a hot day, but I don't remember that lack of parking happening very often. (Maybe my dad was right.) Was it the combination of the heat and my quietness (I was counting in my head - mouth closed.) during the first half of the walk that made me see Solana Beach in a new way? Because Moonlight Beach was my default beach when I was a kid, it was the beach I tended to visit even after I moved and still what I think of when I picture the beach in my mind.

Solana Beach at low tide was unbelievably beautiful to my eyes. The flat beach between the cliffs and the ocean reminded me of Lawrence of Arabia, one of my favorite movies. We saw a few sandpipers and other birds. They were doing a dance up and down and my wife wondered if it was a mating dance. It was about 5:30 and the light at that time of day just seemed perfect. I would say that it was the best 2 mile walk I've ever had except for the one on Catalina where I met her years ago, but that's another story. Marianne and I will pay more attention to low tide and we'll be visiting Solana Beach again soon.

Watering Roses And Reading Lauren Winner

Our son got his second "behind the wheel" today and I watered the roses and everything else at the Bay Park house, front and back. He said that driving isn't as much fun for two hours when you don't really have a goal. Wait until he commutes. I did manage to get some walking in with all that back and forth, but tomorrow is really the day.

Watering gives you time to think. Some of the time I was reading Lauren Winner's "girl meets GOD". She is really good. Maybe I'll write as well one day. I was really moved as she talked about faith and feeling and Christianity and Judaism. She tells her story extremely well. I can see in my mind's eye everything she describes quite easily. You feel for her every step of the way. She motivates and inspires.

I'll be thinking about her story on my walk tomorrow.

Not Quite Awake But Blogging

I was awakened minutes ago by a dream in which I received an email telling me I was going to be killed by a professional killer. Is God giving me ideas for a screenplay? I know I'm not quite awake because I couldn't remember what keys did what on my laptop for a couple seconds.

During the last 10 days I have been exploring Twitter and I am finding that more visitors have found my blog today than just about any day in the last couple months.

I read my blog entry and realized it's been a couple weeks, which is probably not as interesting to the Twitter people who mostly send messages at least once or twice a day. I haven't been able to shut up since I started Twittering (Tweeting?). Visit my Twitter profile by clicking on the title of this post.

I do believe that having this many people read my stuff will give me more incentive to get back on pace. I intended to go again to the climbing wall with my son, but he was worn down by soccer and karate. I've only done 2 miles at a time walking recently, so I've got to get that back in shape. Any Twitterers (Tweeters?) and others who want to leave encouraging comments are welcome to do so.

I also started a blog called How I Twitter. If you're interested in social networking, you'll want to visit: HowITwitter.blogspot.com and "follow" me on Twitter. I can't quite remember what else I had to say so I guess I'll be getting back to bed soon.

Tell Someone Publicly

I volunteer with Reality Changers most Wednesday nights. We have a sharing time that includes the tutors and I let them know that I have been going backwards and/or standing still in my weight loss goal. When I started in January, I assumed that by publicly letting people know through the internet, I would have enough incentive to reach my goal.

Now I am in a position to show you that even though you get off track, you can get right back on the horse. It's helpful to tell at least one other person about your goal and in my case, I told about a dozen. Later this morning I will weigh myself and see where I'm at.

I did do something I haven't done before last Friday. My son and I went to Solid Rock Gym in San Marcos for an hour and a half and we definitely worked up a sweat on the climbing walls. He asked me if we could go and I thought about it and decided I would do it. I didn't realize that he was only asking if I would take him and be the belayer. So I stepped out of my comfort zone and worked some muscles that needed working and Stuart and I had a great time. We are on schedule for this Friday, too.

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