Going MS for MS

I guess it's time that I come clean: I'm going MS for MS. By the first MS I mean metro sexual. The second is Multiple Sclerosis.

For the second time I'm riding in the MS Bike Tour (I won't call it by it's official name because I don't like it) in Logan Utah. Last time in order to motivate donors I shaved my head. This time, I'm being a little more subtle -- I've shaved my legs.

I have to admit that for several years as I've ridden my bike I've looked down in disgust at the hairy poles protruding from my biking shorts and envied the smooth, muscular look of serious cyclists.

Hey it's for a good cause and while I may never have legs like Lance Armstrong I do like the look of the glistening sweat on my smooth legs.

Of course, this is as MS as I'll go. You won't find me wearing a salmon colored shirt, polishing my fingernails, sporting a man-purse or hanging Ansel Adams' photos in my office -- but I will keep my legs trimmed, at least for another month.

How Easily We Get Bored

Yikes! Has it been two months since my last blog?!

What a crazy Spring in Utah -- or should I say, lack of Spring. 90 Degrees one day, snow the next. It's made my bike training rather difficult. Regardless, I'm starting to get in the habit. Out each day at lunchtime I'm slowly getting my endurance and strength back .... at least my cycling strength.

I started a nightly routine of situps and pushups to try and strengthen my core. Wow! I decided to start moderately so that I didn't get too sore and have to stop for two weeks like I've done in the past. I found out that moderate means 20 situps and 10 pushups. I feel old.

I have been able to increase my situps by five each night. I'll see how long that lasts. Maybe an increase of one per night is more realistic. I hadn't really done the math but now that I think of it in two months I'll be doing over 300 situps per night -- probably not a good idea =)

I've decided to stop weighing myself. I don't want to look at the scale until I can notice some change in the mirror.

So much for my rambling.

Update

Okay, I've been a little slow on posting my results because I wanted to be sure that I had some results to post. It doesn't make sense to say, "two weeks and no change."

I was able to drop four pounds through moderate diet and bouts of intense exercise.

I'm thinking of have a metabolic assessment done to see what my metabolic rate is and what my optimal exercise intensity is. I'm sure that when I exercise all I burn is carbohydrates since I have a tendency to believe that I am 17 years old and in prime condition.

Of course, I celebrated my "success" with an over indulgent meal at the Thai House in Lehi -- and might I suggest the lemon-orange chicken, yum!

I have committed myself to once again riding in the MS 150 bike ride in Logan. Hopefully this commitment will help motivate me to step up my weight loss program. After all, I don't really want to take and extra 40 pounds along for the ride.

Step 1: Admit You Have a Problem

When I was 17 I was 6'2", 140 pounds and had body fat of 4.5%. I could eat a double Whopper with cheese every day for lunch and a half-gallon of ice-cream at night and never gain a pound.
Those days are over. I'm now almost 44. I'm still 6'2" but that's the only similarity. My Wii Fit just told me I'm overweight with a body mass index of 28 (it means I'm fat.)
Over the years I've tried different diets and weight loss programs. I've stayed fairly active, riding my bike on almost a daily basis. Yet the climb up the scale keeps going.
So, I've decided to shame myself into weight loss. I currently weigh 218 lbs. My goal is 178. I will post a weekly weigh-in.
I'm also planning to pack a healthy lunch each day instead of hitting the fast food joints or scrounging the office for food. So, any suggestions are welcome.

Those Dang Old Cars

I really like not having a car payment. But the trade-off for me is driving a 10-year-old Durango with 133k miles. This morning ol' blue refused to go. So instead I made the five house trek down the street to borrow the momandadmobile -- aka the communal car. Lucky for me Kimberly had just returned it the night before and it was clean!
However, I couldn't stand having an unfixed vehicle so I slipped out of work early and headed home for the frustration of car repair. Spark plugs seemed like a reasonable start. After all, they've never been changed. Seemed like a good call. The gap was twice what it should be on all eight and the post was almost completely gone. Problem solved? The car started, but doesn't seem to run a whole lot better.
While I had it in the garage I decided to change the oil (my last trip to Jiffy Lube cost me over $60! What happened to the $20 oil change?!) This resulted in oil running down my sleeve as I tried to remove the oil filter from it's hidden position.
Now I know that changing the oil won't make the engine run any better but it made me feel good nonetheless. Cars these days are so hard to work on. Everything is electronically controlled. You can't just get in and make a mechanical fix.
So, I don't expect ol' blue to run much better tomorrow. I'm hoping that he'll hold out until Spring when I can trade him in on a slightly less old car. After all, warm weather hides a lot of car ills.

The Stimulus Package is Already Working!

I've been stimulated right back into writing my blog by all this stimulus nonsense. So, I guess it's working -- in one sense.

The following Op-ed piece ran in the Washington Post by the ranking republican on the House Appropriations Committee. I still think he's being a little soft and should take a hard stand against the stimulus package, but he is a politician. The fact of the matter is that Clinton asked for $16 billion and America scoffed at that. Have we gotten so drunk that we can swallow hundreds of billions of dollar spending proposals and think it necessary medicine?! Wake up America!!! This is not a good idea.

LEWIS: Common sense on spending

Washington Times: January 22, 2009

COMMENTARY:

America's economic crisis continues, and there is an immediate need for Congress to produce a strong and definitive plan to help weather this financial storm.

In reviewing the Pelosi-Obey stimulus proposal released last week, I was struck (along with many others) by the sheer magnitude of the numbers before us. Just the size of this bill, some $825 billion, raises serious concerns. Without a clear assurance of how, why and if this proposal will create jobs and promote economic recovery, Congress cannot simply write an $825 billion blank check at taxpayer expense. We should demand that there be some clear, unequivocal assurance of the desired outcomes, in the form of a revitalized economy.

Unfortunately, the evidence from past attempts at stimulating the economy through government spending does not lead to this needed measure of certainty.

In part, this is a debate over how, not how much is needed, to stimulate the economy. This bill represents the theory that the economy can be boosted if the government borrows money and then gives it to people so they will spend it. This supposedly "primes the pump" as the money circulates through the economy. The theory sounds good, and it would be nice if it made sense, but it has a glaring logical fallacy. It overlooks the fact that, in the real world, government can't inject money into the economy without first taking money out of the economy.

More specifically, the Pelosi-Obey stimulus proposal only looks at half of the equation - the part where government puts money in the economy's right pocket. But we must also ask where the government gets that money? Ironically, the answer is that it borrows it out of the economy's left pocket. This scheme doesn't boost national income, it merely redistributes it. The pie is sliced differently, but it's not any bigger.

Previous attempts to use this redistribution strategy did not work. Both President Herbert Hoover and President Franklin D. Roosevelt dramatically increased spending, and neither showed any aversion to running up big deficits, yet the economy was terrible all through the 1930s. Stimulus schemes also were tried by President Gerald Ford and President George W. Bush and had no impact on the economy.

And over the 1990s, Japan engaged in massive, multiple stimulus efforts and saw its economy remain stagnant and its per capital income go from the world's second-highest to the tenth-highest.

To be fair, the failure of stimulus spending to boost growth may not necessarily mean government spending does not create jobs. Moreover, the argument that government can create jobs is not unique to "stimulus" bills and is often a significant component to other types of legislation.

Nevertheless, no matter how the issue is analyzed, the more relevant question is how the government might destroy jobs.

For example, if the government decides to build a bridge, it is very easy to see the workers who are employed on that project. But what is less obvious is how many of those workers have been taken from jobs in the private sector, and thus are no longer available for other, perhaps better and more "stimulative," uses.

Based on the Pelosi-Obey jobs claims, this bill will spend a shocking $275,000 for each new job created (assuming they actually materialize). Even worse, this calculation is only a partial measure of cost. In reality, the cost of each government-sponsored job should reflect how the market would have spent the $275,000 if the government had never got its hands on it in the first place. It is more than likely the private sector could have created more than one job for $275,000 - especially considering the average U.S. household income is around $45,000.

Finally, we must not forget that this massive government spending doesn't come out of thin air and we run the perilous risk of leaving a terrible fiscal legacy for future generations. This comes at a time when we are already staring down a trillion-dollar deficit. Based on Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recent figures, by 2019 we will have to spend $750 billion per year just on interest alone on debt that has accumulated - and this does not include the addition of $825 billion in new "stimulus" spending.

I fully understand that prompt action is needed, but there are more than enough reasons for caution on this "stimulus" legislation. While there may be a few folks who think a big increase in the burden of government somehow is a recipe for job creation, the facts show they may be missing the mark.

In order to make the best possible decisions regarding economic stimulus legislation, we must ask ourselves some common sense questions. Are the programs in this bill really stimulative? Do they create jobs, (and how many and for how long)? Are they worth the cost? Are these one-time costs, or we committing our nation to years and years of heightened government spending? And are these things that must be done immediately, or could they be done more effectively and efficiently with more deliberation and study?

If Congress fails to ask these questions, protect the interest of the taxpayer and remember our economic history, and exercise common sense, we will find ourselves in worse economic shape than we are today. An $825 billion free-for-all based on flawed policy will not be our rescue - it will shackle our country to continued economic decline and a perilous national financial future.

Jerry Lewis of California is the ranking Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives' Appropriations Committee.

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow!

Finally, the first real snowfall of the year. By that I mean a snow that requires shovelling. And by that, I mean pushing snow with the plow on my four-wheeler.

I believe there is something deep-seated in the male brain that drive him to want to operate mechanical equipment. There are very few things I enjoy more than heading out into the cold and snow to plow every sidewalk and driveway that I can get to on a tank of gas. I feel like a real man. It completes me.

This morning I headed out at about 7 am planning on only doing my driveway, my parent's driveway and the single lady I home teach. Of course, there was sidewalks to plow between all of these -- and you can't plow one sidewalk and leave another covered. And then there were neighbors out shovelling their walks and I had to help them, too. And there were others who could use the help -- the elderly or pregnant. And the church walks needed to be cleared. Two hours later my wife had to remind me that I have a job that pays money that I needed to get to.

Not all my neighbors share my enthusiasm. Especially those who find a "beaver pelt" of grass or have to replace sprinkler heads in the spring. But I appreciate them letting me be a man (or over sized boy) for a few hours when it snows.