Flowerzilla

We saw giant weeds, which I have been working hard to kill. We saw the end of fall color with a snow in Park City. By contrast, here are some wonderful flowers that bloom each fall when little else is going on. They are called Winter Daisies and I got them as a handout from our neighbor in Beaufort.



I figured the dog wasn't going to be as useful a size reference. I am six feet tall, so you can figure the flowers are somewhere in the 10-12 foot range. The amazing thing is that they die back to the ground each year, and then grow this tall again the next. Oh, and they spread, so you actually have to work to stop them.

Not nearly the size, but quite pretty are the asters. Some years they only bloom once. This year they decided to give it another go. There must be 1000 blooms on each plant.



The asters don't repopulate very easily, but if anyone wants a wheelbarrow load of winter daisies, just let me know.

And so winter begins....

Some low quality images nabbed from Park City's mountain cameras, but you can get the idea. The first real snow of the year. It was sunny and 76 here in Raleigh today.

The best dining in Raleigh

Julie and I went out for dinner last night to celebrate our 17th anniversary. Our restaurant choice was Saint Jacques, off of Falls of Neuse Rd. in North Raleigh. After much pondering, we have decided that this is the best restaurant we have found in the Triangle area. It is French cuisine and all the food is wonderful. The onion soup is better than either of us found in about a dozen trips to France. The ambience is nice and quiet, so it is easy to have a conversation. The wait staff is great: polite, attentive and knowledgable. We've been several times and each visit was outstanding.

So, if you are in Raleigh or the surrounding areas and haven't eaten here, you should give it a visit!

http://www.saintjacquesfrenchcuisine.com/

Is you educated?

Barack Obama:
Columbia University - B.A. Political Science with a Specialization in
International Relations.
Harvard - Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude

Joseph Biden:
University of Delaware - B.A. in History and B.A. in Political Science.
Syracuse University College of Law - Juris Doctor (J.D.)

John McCain:
United States Naval Academy - Class rank: 894 of 899

Sarah Palin:
Hawaii Pacific University - 1 semester
North Idaho College - 2 semesters - general study
University of Idaho - 2 semesters - journalism
Matanuska-Susitna College - 1 semester
University of Idaho - 3 semesters - B.A. in Journalism

Mining coal

Out in Utah, there is a lot of push to do more mining and drilling. One hot topic is shale oil, which requires a HUGE amount of raw materials and processing. The industry swears they will do it "nicely". I ran across an article today that talks about coal mining in West Virginia. Instead of digging those holes (hard, expensive, dangerous), they are just blowing the tops off of mountains (cheap, fast). Not one or two mountains, 470 so far.

To those who support the mining industry, do you really believe anything they say about protecting the environment?

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/10/07/coal.river/index.html

More football

This weekend we had a noon home game with Boston College. As always, we were supposed to lose. We went with two neighbors, Jim and Carmela Saunders.

This guy had the right attitude. He came dressed to win.



This guy had a bad (drunken) attitude. He managed to fall asleep (pass out) right in the middle of the game. Fortunately, the crowd exploded after a 61 yard touchdown pass and woke him from nap time.



Being down by 14 in the fourth quarter, NC State managed to bring it back to a tie with about two minutes to go. We were looking good, but we just couldn't stop Boston College from scoring one more time to win the game. The weather was gorgeous. The game was exciting. Only the outcome was disappointing.

An endless loop

Our dog Jasper is built like a runner. Here is a picture of him back in the winter.



So, part of our job is to make sure the dog gets enough exercise so that he doesn't get bored and get into trouble. Mischief comes easy for a part Lab, part Border Collie.

This morning, Julie took Jasper on her early morning walk with some of the women in our neighborhood. Two laps around the 'hood is good for a bit less than 4 miles. Then I took him for a run, two more loops with an extra walking loop. Now he's done about 9 miles and we have just hit 10:00. On the way home, he stops to play chase for 5-10 minutes with a 1 year-old yellow lab.

We are thinking "Great, we wore him out". He seems to be thinking "This is awesome. I am getting more endurance every week!" By the end of November, we may have to have him chase the car to Durham each morning. Not sure how this ends....

Drought in N.C. my butt

OK, I know we needed the rain. I know that just filling up the lakes isn't enough to impact the water table. But come on! Enough already.

In the graph below, you can see that since the second half of August, we have gone from about "normal" to almost 9 inches ahead. That's about 14 inches of rain. It's raining again as I type. Even when it isn't raining, it's humid because the ground is a giant sponge.



I would like to formally lodge a protest.

Football, I think not.

We went to the NC State vs. South Florida game on Saturday. What a nasty evening. It was a 7:30 game on ESPNU. At least the tailgating went well. We joined Tony and Patty Hudson and some of their friends for a great Pig Pick'n. Then we wandered off to visit with Steve and Julie Kjellberg. Steve was the builder who did all of our house remodeling.

Barbie, Julie and Julie pose in their stylish matching shirts.



My favorite tailgating tool: a gas powered blender. When fired up, it sounds like something between a leaf blower and a chain saw. Worked like a charm!



Then someone with a sick sense of humor started the game. South Florida marched up and down the field as though we had no defense. In almost no time, they had three touchdowns, a field goal and two safeties. We had a field goal. Just to rub salt in the wound, it started to drizzle. Then the drizzle changed to real rain, which in turn changed to a downpour.



NC State got their butts whomped and we got quite wet. Yuck!

Starting to run

It has been a long time since I have tried running for exercise. The last two times I did, my right knee decided it wasn't a great idea. I decided to give it another try with extra stretching and a reasonably slow start up.

The first day, I go out and plod 2 miles. It wasn't as bad as it used to be. Plodding with 20 less pounds makes each "thunk" a bit softer and easier. I do two more days of 2 miles, each day improving the speed and crossing the threshold from plodding to jogging. Then I make the mistake of figuring out how to ramp up my distance. I consult a number of running web sites and the recurring theme is to add 10% each week to your longest run. Sounds dandy! Then I do the math. 2 miles goes to 2.2, which goes to 2.42 which goes to 2.662. I won't bother taking you through all the decimals and weekly calculations, but at the end of week 8, you still haven't gotten to 4 miles. To get to 18 miles, which is a good training run for a marathon, you have to do this for 24 weeks. My attention span simply isn't that long.

Being as clever as I am, I just went out and ran 4 miles. This cuts 8 weeks off the schedule. Smart, eh? Of course, this answers why I have had problems the past two times I started running. We shall see.

This is my motivational picture from 1999. If I can run a sub 4 hour marathon while over weight and without much training, this should be easy!