30 June 2008

Checkup time

Today, I finally went in for a much-delayed checkup.

I decided to do the Kelsey-Seybold executive health assessment, which is the usual comprehensive physical (but done in half a day at their main campus). The tests were covered under my insurance, although I was responsible for the program fee (which I paid through with my HSA). It's a good approach.

The results were mostly good.

My blood/chem workup was fine -- no problems with cholesterol, good ratio of good cholesterol/bad cholesterol, normal liver/kidney functions indicated, etc. EKG was fine. Blah blah blah.

For years, I've been borderline hypertensive. With that info, my personal health history, and the results from my stress test, the doc recommended that I start the lowest dosage of ACE inhibitor (blood pressure medication). He thought I *might* be able to put it off if I were to cut caffeine entirely and up my workouts, but we both came to the conclusion that was unlikely (I likey my caffeine, and it's hard to see how I'm going to top the 1,560 minutes of cardio I have logged in the month of June).

Beyond that, the doc encouraged me to keep up my healthy eating/workout routine (and told me he could see my bad-carb/sat fats reduction efforts clearly in the blood workup).

I'm happy enough with all that. Now I just need to keep up the excellent workout routine (seriously, 1,560 minutes of cardio this month!) and the grilling/SouthBeach-Med diet thing.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/30/08 21:42 | Other | Technorati | Comments (6)

21 June 2008

Austin Collins tonight

Austin Collins is playing Goode tonight.

I should really go see my friends who play in his band.

But I'm leaning towards bouzouki at Alexander the Great Greek.

Bouzouki is timeless.

UPDATE: Bouzouki was excellent. George Kitidis is, without doubt, one of the finest musicians in town. The bellydancing was entertaining as well.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/21/08 19:12 | Other | Technorati | Comments (0)

AFSCME

Oh my!

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/21/08 19:05 | Other | Technorati | Comments (0)

19 June 2008

Can we lock our pols in the toilet?

Protest at Maoist toilet lock up (BBC News)

Thousands of local government workers in Nepal have gone on strike after a Maoist minister locked up an "errant official" in a toilet.

The official had incurred the minister's wrath for allegedly running an illegal stone mine.

Striking workers said that his incarceration inside a toilet was an "inhumane and objectionable act".

But the minister responded by saying that the official now knows what it is like to live in a "foul environment".

Reports from Nepal say that the Minister for Forest and Soil Conservation, Matrika Yadav, locked up local development officer Dandu Raj Ghimire for one and a half hours on Tuesday inside a toilet room.

I can't help but think that the American political system could benefit from locking up our pols in the toilet room. Given what they produce so much of the time, it would seem an appropriate gesture.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/19/08 13:38 | Other | Technorati | Comments (2)

13 June 2008

Hmm, maybe the aerobic workouts aren't so bad after all

My mom emailed me earlier that the police chief when I was growing up small town Oklahoma had died suddenly of a heart attack.

That made me resolve to go on to the gym, even though I'm really draggy and lazy today.

While at the gym, wondering if I shouldn't just cheat and bail on the aerobic workout a little early, news flashed on the screens that Tim Russert had died suddenly of a heart attack (at age 58).

I decided to push on through the aerobic workout.

The gym has been eating up a lot of time since the float trip: 30 minutes of weights followed by 75 minutes of aerobics every other day, followed by 45 minute of just aerobics on "off" weight training days, with one day per week off altogether. The aerobics are hardcore, high end of the target zone stuff, not the walk on the treadmill/talk on the cell phone for 20 minutes variety that so annoys me.

I've also tried to change my grilling up the last few weeks so that I'm going about twice as much chicken/fish as red meat on the trusty Lodge. With plenty of Greek salads to go along with (and red wine).

Needless to say, all of this is consuming quite a bit of time that has often been spent blogging or podcasting or tinkering. The bike time has resulted in more reading, so that's good. And if it helps to head off dropping dead of a heart attack at a too-young age, that's definitely good.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/13/08 16:37 | Other | Technorati | Comments (0)

31 May 2008

Grilled fish (and some other yummy stuff)

Today, I successfully grilled some beautiful (on-sale-at-Kroger) salmon fillets.

This is a milestone of sorts. Usually , my efforts at grilling fish are an absolute disaster. So much so that I had pretty much given up trying.

But, as we get older, we become more cognizant of needing to eat more fish and chicken. And since grilling is my main method of preparing food... time to have another go at it.

Thanks to our good friend Google, the fact that lemon and olive oil are a perfect marinade for about any non-beef meat, and my trusty Lodge Logic grill, the salmon turned out just fine.

The horiatiki salad (with veggies from the T'afia farmer's market) and the Dry Comal Creek Savignon Blanc were the perfect complements. MMMMMM.... healthy, glycemic-index-friendly dining doesn't have to be a drag! Not at all.

The BIG indulgence later is likely to be some Greek yogurt (no sugar added -- sour, by sugary American standards) and honey.... MMMM!

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 05/31/08 18:38 | Other | Technorati | Comments (8)

15 May 2008

Back!

We rolled into Houston last yesterday afternoon, a little late but without the problems of the trip over (although both KLM jets were late -- KLM cannot seem to make an on-time departure, even from their main airport first flight of the day for the aircraft in question).

Still fighting a bit of jet lag, but with any luck that will work itself out tomorrow.

I kept a pretty detailed (handwritten) travel journal this time, and will probably backfill the blog with those notes eventually. And photos.

But maybe not for a few days. :)

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 05/15/08 09:13 | Other | Technorati | Comments (4)

24 April 2008

Reminiscent of Wild Bill

Former congressman indicted for assault (Courtney Zubowski , KHOU-11 News)

HOUSTON -- Former U.S. Congressman Craig Washington was indicted Wednesday on charges of second-degree aggravated assault.

The charges stem from an incident that happened outside of his business in the 2300 block of Caroline on New Year's. He's accused of shooting at a car.

Two teenagers are believe to have been in the car when he allegedly shot at it.

The handful of Pawhuska, OK readers here will, no doubt, have flashbacks to "Wild Bill" Ackley.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 04/24/08 22:21 | Other | Technorati | Comments (1)

07 April 2008

There's one for show and tell

Children find severed head on beach (AFP)

LONDON (AFP) - Two young sisters found a woman's severed head while playing on the beach at Arbroath, police said Tuesday.

The grisly find was inside a plastic bag, and Tayside Police have also recovered a hand.

A specialist team were searching the beach, a police spokeswoman said.

"Tayside Police has cordoned off a section of beach at Arbroath in Angus today after the apparent discovery of human body parts," she said.

"Officers attended at a stretch of foreshore... after the grim discovery was made by children playing on the beach.

"They found what appears to be the head of a woman concealed in a plastic bag. A hand has also been recovered from the beach.

"It is understood that they belong to a woman. Scenes of crime officers are in attendance and an extensive search of the beachfront is continuing at this time.

"The items are being removed and will be subject to further detailed forensic examination."

We never found anything as cool as that when we were kids. On some nearby trails, the best I can recall running across were a dead horse and the remains of some animal that had been caught in a trap. A severed head definitely trumps those!

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 04/07/08 11:03 | Other | Technorati | Comments (2)

01 April 2008

Not Crocs

I ordered a pair of the pictured Teva sandals recently, and am really pleased with them. I think they are going to be perfect for the Greece trip in May. Not to mention bouncing around Houston most any time of the year.

And while they look a little bit like the evil Crocs, they differ fairly significantly.

Okay, they are still ugly. But there are not as ugly (or evil) as Crocs.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 04/01/08 21:30 | Other | Technorati | Comments (6)

30 March 2008

What they need to produce is an anti-strangelet

Asking a Judge to Save the World, and Maybe a Whole Lot More (Dennis Overbye, NY Times)

More fighting in Iraq. Somalia in chaos. People in this country can’t afford their mortgages and in some places now they can’t even afford rice.

None of this nor the rest of the grimness on the front page today will matter a bit, though, if two men pursuing a lawsuit in federal court in Hawaii turn out to be right. They think a giant particle accelerator that will begin smashing protons together outside Geneva this summer might produce a black hole or something else that will spell the end of the Earth — and maybe the universe.

Scientists say that is very unlikely — though they have done some checking just to make sure.

The world’s physicists have spent 14 years and $8 billion building the Large Hadron Collider, in which the colliding protons will recreate energies and conditions last seen a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang. Researchers will sift the debris from these primordial recreations for clues to the nature of mass and new forces and symmetries of nature.

But Walter L. Wagner and Luis Sancho contend that scientists at the European Center for Nuclear Research, or CERN, have played down the chances that the collider could produce, among other horrors, a tiny black hole, which, they say, could eat the Earth. Or it could spit out something called a “strangelet” that would convert our planet to a shrunken dense dead lump of something called “strange matter.”

I think many places in the country are already suffering from the spread of "strangelets."

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/30/08 07:55 | Other | Technorati | Comments (2)

17 March 2008

Ouch

Abba drummer found dead in Spain (BBC News)

A former session drummer with Swedish pop band Abba has been found dead in the garden of his Spanish home with cuts to his throat, police say.

A spokeswoman said the man was 62-year-old Ola Brunkert, and said his death appeared to be accidental.

Police believe Brunkert hit his head on a window and shattered the glass which cut him. A post-mortem is taking place.

What an awful way to go.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/17/08 13:44 | Other | Technorati | Comments (1)

12 March 2008

Blog billboard

Driving through Skiatook, Oklahoma earlier, I noticed a crude billboard advertising SkiatookBlog.com

I checked it a while ago, but it seems to have shut down at the end of 2007.

Maybe the crude billboard ad wasn't effective?

Maybe they should have gone with car magnet advertising, like Dan Patrick promised for Lone Star Times once upon a time. :)

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/12/08 19:51 | Other | Technorati | Comments (0)

19 February 2008

Outstanding

Man Puts Out Girlfriend's Cigarette with Fire Extinguisher (Spiegel)

With smoking bans in effect across much of Germany these days, lighting up a cancer stick in a restaurant will, at the least, result in some nasty looks and a request to extinguish your cigarette. But even smoking at home can be rather dangerous.

Such is the lesson learned by a woman in the German city of Bielefeld on Sunday evening. She lit up in the apartment she shares with her 42-year-old boyfriend, only to see him flip out and begin cursing her. Not completely satisfied with his tirade, the boyfriend then grabbed a fire extinguisher and sprayed the entire apartment with the fine, white powder inside.

"He just sprayed it all over the flat," Bielefeld police spokesman Michael Waldhecker told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "With that kind of a fire extinguisher, it looks like it just snowed in the apartment. It's hellish to clean up."

Fearing for her safety, the girlfriend called the police. As the man continued firing off choice insults at his girl in the presence of the police, the officers took him to the station to calm him down.

"We didn't want the situation to escalate," Waldhecker said. But he said it is unlikely the man will be charged with anything. "It was his apartment and his fire extinguisher." And, he pointed out, the girlfriend was unharmed in the attack.

But the relationship may have suffered.

Ya think?

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 02/19/08 10:57 | Other | Technorati | Comments (2)