July 31, 2007

I knew that almonds, peaches and cherries are somehow related to each other (in the same family?). What's interesting: if you crack open up the pit of a peach and find the seed, it looks exactly like an almond. However, it is poisonous and converted to cyanide if ingested. This is also true for apricots.

Posted by megabeth at 01:13 PM | Comments (0)

July 30, 2007

Natch.

I get sick just thinking about eating a can of chili and beans.

Posted by megabeth at 03:41 PM | Comments (1)

I was so tired of the toilets breaking in my house, so this weekend I bought a new toilet. I know someone who likes me a lot since he will install a toilet for me. This included scraping off gross-looking rust from the pipe in the floor after the old toilet was removed.

I bought a Kohler and it has, of course, cheap plastic parts in the tank. They'll break in a month, but what a NICE month it's going to be! Once it was installed, I experienced great excitement over a toilet that flushes correctly. The awe and wonderment may subside in a few weeks. :)

Posted by megabeth at 12:34 PM | Comments (3)

July 27, 2007

Part of my job is reading the various oil and natural gas price forecasts that consultants publish. Most of them think that the price of oil is going to continue an upward trajectory over the long run. Worldwide demand will not abate, particularly in countries where the price of gasoline is dirt cheap (Venezuela, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait). In oil producing countries, because demand is soaring (due to cheap gas), exports are on the decline. And new supply is not being found or tapped for various reasons, such as politics and the expense of drilling. A couple of recent forecasts I've seen are $83 and $100 per barrel. Oil prices are currently around $75 a barrel.

If these forecasters are right, be prepared to pay $4 a gallon. You are already used to paying $3, and I don't think that prices will decrease below $2.75-ish again.

This has influenced my decision not to get another car yet. I think the US government recently passed an increase (or there is an outstanding bill on Congress, can't recall which) in CAFE standards to 35 mpg by 2020. That's a long time to wait for a more fuel efficient car. Based on my low monthly driving mileage (800-1000 miles per month), I cannot justify the purchase of a hybrid vehicle at current gasoline prices, and most likely not at $4/gallon either. I'd like to wait and see how the situation unfolds before sinking a wad of cash into a new car.

Posted by megabeth at 08:54 AM | Comments (0)

July 26, 2007

I've written this post about ten times and then decided to start over. It's a hard thing to write about in just a few paragraphs.

One of the things I attribute to better health than ever this summer is a rift between me and my mother. She is an overly critical, hyper-nagging, negative person who wants to tell me that every decision I've made in my life is the WRONG one. I'm afraid I'm going to become like her. I want to surround myself with positive and supportive people, but it's a lot more difficult to achieve that when a family member, supposedly someone you MUST spend time with, is not that kind of person. Thus, I decided that this 'family obligation' thing should, from here on out, be optional. I have not seen her in about three months. There was an event which served as the straw-that-broke-the-camel's-back. Let's say I hope that nobody else on this planet has a mother who has ever acted the way that she did in this particular event.

She apologized this week. It only took eleven weeks.

But there has been many years of my serving as some sort of punching bag/whipping child for her anger. (There was abuse of various types, at different times in my life.) There is probably little chance that she can regain my trust. There is currently no desire on my part to mend anything, because I like being around people who are nice to me, and I don't want to go back to any situation where someone is not being nice to me. I mean, I'm not going to willingly put myself somewhere that I knew in advance, would be painful or destructive.

And there are 32 years' worth of negative associations that can't be destroyed in one fell swoop. I don't think this issue is about forgiveness, but more about not forgetting. I want to do whatever it takes to avoid being her target. Not being around her has worked better than any other strategies or methods I tried over the last two years, all which have failed.

Since I haven't been a mother before, maybe I'm missing something here. But how can one not treat their offspring with love? I ask myself that question often.

Posted by megabeth at 01:08 PM | Comments (4)

July 25, 2007

My little sister is getting married next year so she's planning everything and making sure that what she does is exactly like what everyone else did. This means having a bridesmaids luncheon at The Club, which has a nice view, but you must check your taste buds at the door. I'm big on good food, so I would want for people to experience culinary delight at any event that is in my honor. (If it is boring, people can at least say, "That was some GOOD food!!") If it makes her happy though; heck, it's just a luncheon.

Another thing I've noticed about wedding traditions lately is that one is expected to spend an ENTIRE weekend at a bachelorette party. My other sister got married 8 years ago and the typical thing to do was go out to the bars for an evening. My sorority sisters have also requested this weekend-long bachelorette event at a city selected for its liberal libations and other less-than-savory activities.

Anyhow, a full weekend of doing nothing but drinking with a group of women (about ten years my junior) does not appeal to me. Maybe it would to some of you guys. ;) I can be a good sport for a bachelorette party for a few hours, max. I hope my sister isn't too ticked off at me for declining this one. If she is, then perhaps she will enjoy my choice of bachelorette party, which involves a three-day bike tour in the mountains. Hehehehehe. Horrors! I am so WEIRD!

Posted by megabeth at 01:41 PM | Comments (0)

July 24, 2007

This is the first time in my life that I can remember being healthy for a long period of time without getting some sort of illness (either exhaustion or catching a bug from a compromised immune system due to exhaustion). My aunt and her boyfriend, who had not seen me since Christmas, were remarking this weekend that I look very relaxed and healthy. I'm getting a lot of help and support with this; anytime I stress out about something, J. takes care of it for me. Also, we've been eating lots of fresh fruits and veggies; trying to stick to whole (unprocessed) foods in general and the 100-mile diet when possible. And once I made the "NO LESS than 8 hours of sleep per night" rule and stuck to it, that made me feel even better. So my improved cycling performance has been reflective of my healthy lifestyle. Last year I was always tired and never felt good enough to ride strong. I had come to accept that my health was unstable. It was very frustrating.

I take vitamins and recovery drinks after workouts, but I don't think that any athletic performance-enhancing product really works all that well, especially in isolation. The best performance enhancing products are low cost and legal: adequate rest, low stress levels, and eating healthy foods.

Posted by megabeth at 08:34 AM | Comments (4)

July 23, 2007

I raced well in Huntsville this weekend, and am finally reaping the rewards of long winter rides and summer training, and have caught up from my two month injury break this spring. My fitness level has increased significantly since I started racing about two months ago.

This was also the first weekend I have raced with my teammates, and it is much easier racing with people who are on your side. We worked together to chase down attacks and position each other for energy conservation.

On Saturday we started the road race around noon in the hot sun. It was 48 miles (three 16 mile laps) so the race started out slowly for the first lap. Everyone was hanging out, chatting with each other. Then I figured the first attack would come on the second lap on the hill, which it did. My goal was to never give up*. There were more attacks and the women's field was splintered, but 5 or 6 of us got back together and rotated a pace line. The lead rider is a notoriously strong woman who can race with men and hold her salt. She got ahead, but we passed her sitting on the road trying to fix a mechanical problem with her bike. That motivated my group to work harder so that she would not be able to catch up to us. By the last 10 miles I was about to die (and puke), but I was determined to finish the race with the lead pack. There were three of us on my team in the lead pack, so we were in a good position. I took a break from pulling after one of my teammates told me to take it easy. The other teammate cramped up a mile or so before the finish, so she did not contend for the final sprint.

(*Note: I was convinced I couldn't hang with the strongest riders, but J. had told me that I was strong enough and should not allow my current category status to limit myself.)

At the end of the race, we sprinted to the finish line and I battled it out with a cat 3 for third place. She beat me by a few inches. I was still ecstatic with fourth place, having been beat by two cat 2s and one cat 3. I won first place for being the first cat 4 across the line. And beat a slew of cat 3s and 4s. The lead rider did not catch up to us but still finished pretty well.

For about an hour after the race I felt pretty bad, but kept putting in calories and recovered nicely by the evening. The next morning we raced the criterium. I was not 100%, but still felt good. It started out very fast and the mistake I made was to not be in the front 3-4 people. One person in front of me gapped the field and dropped off, so I bridged up. The next person gapped the field and dropped off, and I could not bridge up a second time. So the field (down to 4 women) went ahead and I regrouped with some other women. We swapped out pulls, with lots of bickering. Nobody wanted to pull and those who were pulling were taking too long at the front. I decided to stay at the front because I don't like being at the back where someone can attack and I miss out on it. So I had to pull a few times to maintain my position.

After the first part of the race, the pace wasn't too difficult. I had a lot left over for the final sprint and took a good wheel to launch me to the finish. I placed 6th in this one, with one cat 4 and four cat 2s ahead of me.

I'm not quite ready to cat up (I'm going to do another race weekend as a cat 4 to make sure that I am competitive at cat 3 level with other cat 3s). But it looks like I will be a cat 3 by the end of the season. I wasn't sure if I would be able to get strong quickly after my injury time-out, but I have been doing the right things with training, diet and rest, so everything has been working out.

Photos of the races

More photos

And more photos

Posted by megabeth at 08:27 AM | Comments (1)

July 20, 2007

Again, Tom Boonen isn't disappointing.

Posted by megabeth at 01:27 PM | Comments (0)

July 19, 2007

The price of natural gas per Mcf was around $3.00 in 1986. Yesterday, the price of natural gas per MMBtu (1.03 Mcfs) was $6.22.

If you had invested $3 in 1986 and it was worth around $6 today, you would be disappointed in your choice.

The S&P 500 Index was around 250 in 1986. Today it closed at 1553.

It looks like (1) energy is not as expensive as you think it is, and (2) the strategy of index investing ain't all that bad.

Posted by megabeth at 03:20 PM | Comments (0)

I hate riding in traffic as much as drivers hate passing cyclists. I tried to make it easy for drivers to pass and get along their way. Yesterday evening, we roll up to a light where the sensors can't detect a bicycle. I've tried rolling over the demarcations in the pavement several times, to no avail. I see a car rolling up behind us, so we move our bikes over to the yellow-striped median so that she can roll up and trip the sensor. My companion waves to her to pull up to the line. She refuses. Two or three more exhanges of this occur. Finally, she rolls down the window and says, "I'm not doing it. I've been bossed around for 12 hours today and I'm not letting you tell me what to do."

Ah, ok. That's fine. If you want to sit at a red light, for oh, FIVE HOURS, then MAKE YOURSELF HAPPY.

I wanted to drop the subject and let her sit there for an hour without tripping the light, but we ended up having more conversation with her, explaining to her that we can't trip the light with our bikes. She then decided she would roll her car up to the line.

Evidence that if you act pissy about a bad day, your day is not ever going to get any better.

Posted by megabeth at 09:37 AM | Comments (2)

July 17, 2007

A while back I asked the two (ha ha) readers of my blog what phone service they use and if they like it. Everyone that used Verizon had positive things to say about it. I switched about three weeks ago from AT&T to Verizon and haven't had any problems, and my calls have been clear and completed when desired (instead of dropped). I got my first cell phone in 1999 with BellSouth Mobility and stayed with them through the Cingular years, but when AT&T bought out Cingular, that was a warning sign of bad service to come. I don't like telecom companies whose primary product is land lines; they typically have zero customer service. Think about how much fun it is to press 1 1 4 5 2 1 5 2 5 6 2 5 6 8 2 1 6 6 3 2 5 1 1 1 1 1 2 only to find out that you have to hang up and start over because you pressed a wrong number somewhere along the way.

This got me wondering if there is a pattern with #2 companies having better customer service and sometimes a better product than #1. Is being a customer of #2 better because #1 often gets complacent, oversized, oversold, or overextended? Will Toyota (for example) start having product quality and customer service issues?

Posted by megabeth at 08:23 AM | Comments (2)

July 16, 2007

I was watching the TdF on tv yesterday and Borat shows up to cheer on the cyclists. He ran with the pack for a while, so I guess one can run very quickly when not wearing anything but a neon yellow ribbon.

The Eurotrash cycling fans are very reminiscent of NASCAR and/or college football.

Posted by megabeth at 08:39 AM | Comments (2)

July 15, 2007

I'm underweight, and racing this coming weekend, so this week my goal is to eat a lot. So this morning I made some peach & blueberry muffins with Chilton County peaches and locally picked organic blueberries I picked up at the farmers market at Linn Park. (Recipe: http://cupcakeblog.com/index.php?s=peach) These muffins are awesome; they taste like peach cobbler.

I've also been eating veggies from the farmer's market and from the garden. This time of year I don't like to eat much other than fresh fruit and veggies. Which probably explains the weight loss. I'm two pounds above the 'danger zone', which is where I start feeling like crap and getting sick.

Last night for dinner we ate sushi at Whole Foods, and it was very good. The difference between WF sushi and other local sushi bars is that Whole Foods does not skimp on fish in their maki. My tuna rolls were 3/4 tuna; full of big juicy dark red chunks that looked and tasted great.

*UPDATE: Organic brown eggs: It isn't my imagination that they taste different than regular white eggs, I don't think? They are better.

Posted by megabeth at 12:34 PM | Comments (0)

July 13, 2007

Boonen (the really good-looking guy) wins the 6th stage of the TdF. I look forward to the upcoming podium photos.

Interesting news tidbit about this year's Tour (Source: AP):

"This year's 94th edition of the Tour has been unusually slow,
ith an average speed of 24.8 miles per hour so far. After the
ixth stage last year, riders were averaging 26.6 mph. In 2005, it
as 29.8 mph and Lance Armstrong was in the yellow jersey on way to
is record-setting seventh straight Tour victory."

Posted by megabeth at 02:14 PM | Comments (0)

July 12, 2007

These guys riding the TdF are often riding at a speed of 60 km per hour (or 37.3 mph). At that speed it takes them only 1 min and 35 seconds to complete a mile. I'm happy to complete a mile in 3 minutes at a 20 mph pace.

I am rooting for Tom Boonen to do well in this year's TdF because he makes a pretty photograph. Apparently my thoughts are not original; he appears to be a heartthrob in Europe.

Posted by megabeth at 08:44 AM | Comments (0)

July 11, 2007

I have fat feet. Everything else on my body is relatively skinny, but my feet need to shop at Lane Bryant. For most of my life I have been wearing shoes that are one size too long in order to accommodate the width of my feet. This has not been very comfortable. I am known for running around barefoot as long as the weather is warm enough. I keep my tetanus booster updated just in case my barefoot escapades become disastrous. If I comfortably spread my feet out on the ground, they cover at least one zip code. The proportions of my feet are very similar to the feet of a duck. Unfortunately, this did not make me a fast swimmer.

Wearing shoes that hurt puts me in a bad mood, so I decided to go on a quest for shoes that fit. This has been a challenge. I now understand what life is like for people who wear unusually sized clothing (big/tall/tiny). who encounter loads of frustration looking for stylish clothing that fits.

The first thing I did was measure my feet with one of those steel measuring devices you find at a shoe store. My feet measured at a 6 3/4 E. This means I sized up to a 7.

Then I went shopping at the specialty shoe store in town. They had nothing that fit me in any style that I asked for. That was a big help. The shoe salesman also told me that they were the only place to get unusually-sized shoes. Really? I must have been born yesterday. Ever heard of Zappos.com?

There began the process of ordering a hundred pairs of wide shoes from Zappos, trying them on, and sending them back. Zappos has free shipping and a one-day overnight policy. I found a few pairs that fit, but many of the shoes I tried are made for wide feet that are shaped differently than mine. It turns out that my shoe size is actually a 7 EE. That is a DOUBLE WIDE. My feet are wider than most men's feet, including those men with large dogs (sizes 10 to 13). This is mainly because I inherited the bunion gene, and am putting off surgery hopefully until death, because surgery is excruciatingly painful, and most of the time, does not fix the problem.

I think the solution to this problem is to file for protection under the Americans with Disabilities Act, which will then allow me to wear flip-flops or go barefoot to work without lack of retribution or respect from management. Or, I will have to move to Hawaii, where the thong is standard business attire.

This is probably the #1 thing about working in a corporate environment that makes me want to join the tennis-shoe/work-boot work force. Hard-to-fit feet should not keep me from doing anything that I want to do.

Posted by megabeth at 10:09 AM | Comments (2)

July 09, 2007

People, I am smarting. This hurts worse than any cycling race I've ever done. I want to be a good citizen and conserve water in the extreme drought conditions. However, my 1955 toilets aren't complying.

Order of events:

I argue with boyfriend about why toilet needs replacing. I have spent at least 10,000 hours trying to fix the toilet! It can't be fixed! They don't make parts for it!

Boyfriend is quite crafty and gets new flapper at plumbing supply. This is one of those ball-style flappers that nobody uses anymore. Look! Toilet is fixed! See how it flushes and fills up with water again? Boyfriend expects post-toilet fixing reciprocation, but I am not an easy sell. (ha ha)

After all, I may not be the most handyman-inclined, but you can call me an expert toilet fixer after spending around, oh, 10,000 hours trying to fix two old toilets. I have never seen this toilet work right, so an easy flapper replacement isn't going to make me look like an un-handy idiot.

Next, the maid comes to my house and lets himself in with key. Maid cleans toilet. Maid flushes toilet. Toilet flapper does not fall down. Maid is a @#(*$#^%($#*%:(* IDIOT!!! Maid finishes job, takes check, leaves house.

Eight to ten hours later, I come home and find toilet running.

I might as well just sign my bank account and car title over to the water works board.

This was a Very Expensive house cleaning. It hurts. It will hurt me for a long, long time.

(Yes, going toilet shopping this weekend.)

Posted by megabeth at 03:12 PM | Comments (1)

I'm still commuting to work by bike one day a week and really enjoying it. This past Friday was the first time I had to call a lifeline since it was dumping buckets of rain when it was time to leave the office. I don't mind riding in the rain up to a certain point, but this rain was too hard and motorist visibility was restricted.

The Friday before last, on the way home, my commuting group had a nice guy yell at us out his window, "Get your asses off the road!" I looked down and double checked... my ass wasn't on the road at all! My ass was sitting on a bike saddle, not the road! It's nice when people try to be helpful, but that guy may need to have his vision checked.

So there are now four of us in the "bikepool" - actually we have decided that we are a bike gang, but haven't decided on a gang name yet. Beware. We are very scary. ;)

Posted by megabeth at 11:16 AM | Comments (0)

July 05, 2007

Comments are working again. If you posted a comment during the last 3 or 4 weeks, they are now being displayed on the site and I will answer any questions tomorrow in the comments. I wasn't intentionally overlooking anyone. It was awfully lonely not getting any feedback!

Posted by megabeth at 04:35 PM | Comments (1)

My garden looks nice this time of year. I've learned a few more lessons about gardening recently. The beefsteak tomato plant is a heirloom variety and it looks like the fungus (fusarium wilt) is going to get this plant. There is nothing that can be done to prevent or get rid of fungus. I guess next year I could try growing it in a more controlled environment (big plant pot), but I don't know if that will make a difference. (Tomato factoid: Hybrid varieties are bred to be fungus resistant.)

Next year I want to use the space more intensively so that I can have more plants and thus, more food.

(Click for larger pictures.)

This is a good day's harvest.

The pepper plants are currently flowering.

The jalopeno plant has been very happy this summer.

The bell pepper plant looked puny for a while, but it has picked itself up and started producing.

The first sunflower has bloomed. I have about 8 or 9 more that are currently about 7 feet tall and are going to have mega-sized flowers. These are the mammoth variety.

The black background you see under the plants is weed fabric, which doubles as a mulch. Mulch is especially important during a year of drought.

Posted by megabeth at 02:41 PM | Comments (0)

Back to working a nice, round 40-45 hours a week, and I can't get any errands done now because most businesses are open from 9 to 5. Those are my working hours, too. I am very frustrated because I can't figure out how to pick up a pair of pants I left at the alterations place. I was thinking about mailing a payment and asking them to drop off the pants at a nearby cleaners since they are open at 7 am and I can pick them up on my way to work. It is very silly that I have to get things done like this. I will no longer be patronizing any businesses that are not open between 7 and 8 am or 5 and 6 pm. I just want the pants back so I can wear them!

On that note, every time I stop by the Quiznos in downtown Homewood, they are not open. They are not open during those times which we call lunch time and dinner time. This is consistent with Homewood's "we are only open from 10 am to 2 pm" business policy, or in other words, "you are not welcome at this business unless you are a bored housewife with nothing to do but spend your husband's money".

Posted by megabeth at 09:47 AM | Comments (1)

July 02, 2007

There were some problems with this site's host (they were hacked), so comments have not been working in a while. Sorry about that... I will try to get it fixed soon.

Posted by megabeth at 01:57 PM | Comments (0)

A gray hair was found and extracted from my head this weekend. Actually it wasn't gray, it was completely white. White does not equal gray. Besides, it probably is just one of those random weird-colored hairs that most people have. I call it an "albino" hair. I don't think that I can say that I have or had a gray hair until there are more than one or two. I could have had this one white hair since birth; it is probably a genetic anomaly.

Notice how I am in denial?

It is NOT a gray hair.

Laugh all you want. You would be wrong. ;)

Posted by megabeth at 01:48 PM | Comments (0)

My TT results were 10:13 for 4 miles which is 23.5 mph. I finished 6th in the TT, and needed a good crit finish to end up 5th overall in the omnium yesterday.

I'm not much of a morning person, and my body would not respond during warm-up for the crit yesterday. The field (they mixed the women in with men again) started out fast and I struggled to keep up. I hung in for about 15 minutes before getting dropped with a woman from a different team. We worked together for several laps until we were lapped by the field and latched back on. The funny thing is, after about 20-25 minutes of hard exercise in the race, my body was finally warmed up and ready to go. I did a 45 minute warm up but it appears that in the morning I need an even longer, harder warm up. The other woman and I jockeyed for position and during the last lap I charged up to the front of the pack in a full-out sprint trying to get ahead. With a half lap to go, the field took off on a very fast pace and I hung on almost until the end, and sprinted in for a fifth place finish in the crit and the omnium overall.

The weekend helped me figure out what my weaknesses are so I will be working on that in training.

One of the problems I was having is getting really tired the day or two after a race (tired enough to want to go home from work sick). Last night I got 9 solid hours of sleep and feel great today, so there is the solution to that problem.

It was a fun weekend, other than being overheated in the road race and wishing that I could jump in a huge tub of ice water. This was my first omnium, because in the past I would skip out on the time trial. This was my second ever trip to Memphis, and since I don't have anything nice to say about it, I won't say anything at all. Birmingham is really nice.

UPDATE: Photos from the races. I make some nice facial expressions when I am hurting. Apparently not able to carry a good poker face.

Posted by megabeth at 11:05 AM | Comments (0)