The Yankees came to play this week and the White Sox were most hospitable, only taking one of the four games from their visitors. Last night's game revealed the problem the Sox are having--they seem to lack any enthusiasm at all for the game. The boys are dogging it. Can't fault the starting pitchers, but if they don't pitch a complete game then the Sox may as well concede like they did last night. Lead off walk in the top of the 8th to Jetter who just went into the game. The begining of the end. The grand slam by A-Rod in the top of the 9th and the rout was on. By then though, we were on our way home cooling off in the A/C in the car. What a great day we'd had, even if the Sox did lose 10-3. We arrived at 4:15 to stake out a place in the parkinglot and wait for the rest of the tribe. It was surreal, 95 degrees and the wind was blowing 50 mph. The lot was nearly empty and we parked near the gate-- and then took a look around. Barren. Hot. Boring! So we moved to the trees on the west side of the lot next to the Metra trax and settled in. Soon the Hahns and the Schatauer's arrived and Ryder had lot's of company. The Potawatomi Indian Guides storm the Cell. We played bag toss, grilled dogs on the new mini-grill I got for an early Father's Day gift, drank beers and had a grand old time. The trax shielded us from the wind, the trees gave us some shade, and the other tailgaters were fine company, 50-50 Sox and Yankee fans. Steve and Ross joined the fray, and soon Steve and Mary found us. A bit buzzed, hot as all get out, and soon we were in our seats. All was well until the open game fireworks went off, much to Ryder's distress. He heard that they shoot of the fireworks when the Sox hit homeruns. He sat with his fingers in his ears fearing a repeat. Of course there were no Sox homers to fear, even so, he plugged his ears even when the Yankees were playing. Not a big baseball fan, my son. It sure was fun, none the less for all concerned.
The wind persisted into the AM hours. no way I could muster the oomph to join the boys for the ride in, though I slept fitfully, I did not rouse myself until 5:50, ah, too late, so I stayed in bed until nearly 7. Decadent indulgence. Today Ryder slept late for a change. yesterday we were up and at it and the three of us arrived at Lincoln School before 8 AM. We were treated to the a concert performance by the Kindergarteners-- a snappy medley of 15 songs. Ryder knew all the songs and clearly enjoyed his performance. Not a dry eye in the house-- our children have completed this wonderful first year of public school and now are ready for 1st Grade. We were sent home with homework for the summer. To our surprise it was 3rd grade math for the 2nd grade graduate. Wait-- Ryder just finished Kindergarten! We are so pleased the school can provide curriculum for our smart guy. I wish I had his work habits. he sits down and gets his work done. He is drawing a series of objects and labeling them in Spanish, in preparation for Spanish Immersion next year. We will learn Spanish too, no doubt.
So the wind persisted and I humped it in finally after 9. I averaged over 20 mph, cruising at 25 mph for good stretches of the road. 20 minutes door to door (7.5 miles) it was fun. I paid the price on the way home, into the wind. Bent and drawing power from my center, I still managed >15 mph the whole way. And now, Friday night, yeah. Pandora serenaded me with my Bob Dylan channel, which had me singing "I'mg going to give myself a good talking too." Yeah, instead of doing my real work today I keyed in 7 1/2 years of weight data (50 entries per year) and plotted my weight trend over the last 20 years. Quite a nice data set, nearly weekly values input for all those years.
I have gone through three significant weight loss and re-gain intervals over the last 20 years. I started recording my weight when I started running. I dropped 20 pounds over the first 2 years of running-- with no real adjustment to my diet. Then as I transitioned from post-doc to assistant professor and we moved from Ann Arbor to Oak Park, I gained 20 plus pounds back over the next 2 years, though I kept running. Then I became a marathon runner and lost 20 pounds again, over a three year interval. When I became a vegetarian I started to gain weight back-- very interesting observation. Injury and burnout yoga instead of running and in another 3 years I was back up those 20 pounds again. Then in June 1997 after an indulgent visit to New Orleans, I came upon Calorie King Diet Diary and started to track my calories, and consciously reduce my fat intake. The low fat diet and calorie tracking worked. I filled over 20 little diaries in the next year, and lost 20 more pounds, but this time I kept the weight off for over three years. Then well, sure enough, I started to gain it back again. What happened this time? After the year of running (2000, 4 marathons, 1 5oKm, 1 50 miler) Ryder arrived in my life and I started to gain weight. the diet diary did not seem to be enough. My colleague in nutrition assured me that I was very much underestimating how many calories I truly was consuming which discouraged me from keeping the diaries, and this loss of vigalance contributed to my weight gain. Change of life, once again, here come da pounds. I continued to run less, eat more, and finally, in 2004 suffered my catastrophic injury and those 20 pounds are the ones I am NOW LOSING. Diet and exercise are both required. The data tells the story. Now, the new diet. Cut the carbs. the P-diet. no pasta, pizza, pastry, or pan, it provides me some philosophy to guide my food choice. No, Virginia, fat is not the evil thing the AHA , Pritikin, et al would make us believe. I still feel queasy about it, but early evidence supports this approach. I've dropped almost 10 pounds in the first 6 weeks of this diet. And it is not a diet-like diet, just a matter of choice. The induction concept is attactive for subsequent maintenance. there is no doubt that my trend line is up, not down-- I need a mechanism to get down and stay down. And you know, as I approach 210 I feel really good. And as I get under 205, a rare occurance, I feel even better. Should I ever be able to break 200, my goodness, I would feel great, look better, liver longer and my poor old knees would be a lot happier too. yeah baby.
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