A Day in Chicago

Rob, Trisha and I had a fun day in Chicago today. The day started early as we had to drop off Ricky at the airport and so had to leave our hotel at 6 AM! But having to leave early was good since we avoided much of the traffic between here and downtown. By 7 (or so!) we had made it to Lou Mitchells, a famous breakfast place our friend Connie from work had recommended. We ordered jumbo omelets and enjoyed them tremendously. One thing Lou Mitchells is known for is handing out donut holes to everyone and little boxes of milk duds to the ladies as they are seated!

After breakfast, we intended to immediately go up the Sears Tower, but we soon found that they didn't open until 10AM. So, we begin walking . . . First we saw the fountain (which unfortunately had no water since they drained it for winter), then some cool statues as we walked around the museums.

Later we headed over to Navy Pier where we took pictures in front of the funny mirrors and saw some nice great views of the city. By then we were getting hungry so we headed to Buca di Beppo for a good Italian lunch of salad, lasagna and some chicken noodle stuff (which I can't remember the name of - Trisha's better at restaurant food names!). I think Rob and Trisha have exposes me to more new restaurants this week thank I've seen in such a short amount of time!

Finally we got back to the Sears tower and were able to go up it and see the city. It was fun to be able to see from one place all the areas we had walked. If you look at the picture on the left, we walked from as far to the left as you can see (the museum area) to pier sticking out on the far right (Navy Pier) and then back again to the Sears Tower. According to my pedometer, we walked 17,300 steps in downtown Chicago today (which is about 8.3 miles!). Needless to say, we were all a bit tired. The weather was a little chilly though not too cold for walking. However I think the wind made our eyes tired. Rob's been kind in doing all the driving since we arrived so I got a bit of a rest as we drove back here to our hotel.

Our test is tomorrow. It starts around 8:30 or 9, so we may know by 12 or 1 if we passed or not. Keep praying!

Chicago update

Installation has been going pretty well - just a little slower that I had anticipated. I thought we would be finished by yesterday afternoon, but now it looks like we should finish by sometime around noon today.

Last night for dinner, we went to the Cheesecake Factory below the John Hancock Center (we went there in August too). The food was great (I think my cheesecake was called "Chocolate Oreo Mudslide!"), and it was interesting to see the tower at night this time. Chicago is such a busy city. It's cold here, yet still there were people walking and driving all over the place.

212º Video

Elijah sent me the link to this video. It really makes you stop and think about the little things!

A Drive to Chicago

After 12 hours in the car, we have made it to Chicago once again! The trip went really well. Usually I end up reading most of the time in the car, but this time didn't open my book once. It was nice to just talk with Rob and Trisha as well as to get some sleep and drive some. I don't think a 12 hour car trip has ever gone so quickly. So, we're back again and ready to start installing our product first thing in the morning for our test on Friday. Please pray that all goes well - from materials to actual testing!

Monk-e-mail

Dirt, Colds and Running

For the past week, I've had what seems to be a mild cold. Maybe it's just a regular cold? I'm not really sure since I don't get colds that often. The last time I had a cold symptoms (about a year ago) I actually had the whooping cough. I suppose compared to that, a cough associated with any cold is quite mild. I had read at one time that running and exercise in general lessened the severity and frequency of illness (such as colds). I've woken up sniffling or with a sore throat and found that after a 30 min walk or run, the symptoms are just about gone. So, I decided to see if anyone has researched colds and running. This morning I found an article that did mention that the frequency of colds tends to decrease when a person runs a moderate amount, but goes up if a lot of training is occurring. Here's a quote from the article:

"Those who run or walk briskly for 35 to 45 minutes per day, five days a week, spend about half the number of days per year suffering from cold symptoms, compared to sedentary people. In addition, about 60 per cent of recreational runners experience fewer colds after they initiate a running programme, compared to when they were sedentary . . . .

And mum probably forgot to tell you that if you run about 100 or more km per week, your risk of illness is about double, compared to the individuals who log less than 32 weekly kms. That suggests, of course, that immune function declines as training volume increases, yet we also know that runners tend to be healthier than sedentary people. So, a very reasonable question would be: what number of kms per week is best for overall health? Even mum herself doesn't know the answer to that question. The epidemiological evidence indicates that running a moderate amount of km is better for your health than staying on the couch. However, running lots and lots of km is worse for your health than being moderate: mega-mileage is associated with lots of sniffles, coughs, and perhaps other problems. Basically, the graphical plot of illness frequency versus mileage is a U-shaped curve. If there's no mileage, there is quite a bit of sickness, middle mileage leads to little illness, and high km let the microorganisms rule again. The 'middle ground' of best health may well be 25 to 50 km per week or so, or 35 to 45 minutes per day, but no one knows for certain, and the optimal amount no doubt varies from person to person."

The way the article (and that last sentence) was written made me think of my Dad and his theory on dirt. He's said many times that dirt is actually good for you, we just don't know how much or what kind!

So, we can probably all agree that exercise is good. But as in most things, too much of a good thing is not a good thing!

Busy

I took a look at my google analytics report and saw that not as many people are coming to this site these days. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that I haven't been posting regularly, or does it? Life has been busy in every area since the camping trip. Among other things, I've got some new projects at work, am getting ready for a trip to Chicago for another test, continuing to work on the church website (check it out here) and dealing with car problem as well as talking quite a bit to a friend of mine! I guess as the year comes to a close, it's easier to see that time really does pass very quickly. It seems like just a month or so ago, I was contemplating the new year and wondering what it would bring.

So, I've been letting this blog slip. It's not what I want to do, but something that tends to happen as other areas fill up. One of my ideals is to post every day or at least every other day on this blog. Obviously, we don't live in an ideal work and we must make choices with our time. We can't do everything we may want to do.

So I guess this is just a post for those of you who I don't see very often and are wondering what's up in my life. I will try to post more this weekend. So far nothing is scheduled in to fill Saturday though I'm sure I will fill it with plenty of things!