Confessions of a Serial Santa

One benefit (downside?) of my parents high level of church involvement is that it gives my mother access to a Santa suit.  And there is only one way that my mother having access to a Santa suit will end ------> with me playing Santa at the church youth program.  I believe that tonight was the fourth or fifth time I have done so.  I'll level with you: the Santa suit is mine for all intents and purposes; living in my house all year, taunting, lurking, waiting.  Now, without further ado, some thoughts on playing Santa:

1. The suit itself isn't bad, kind of like a mildly furry, one size fits all sweat suit.  I would gladly wear it out in public, repping the Santa life.  

 The problem is the beard, dear God, the beard.  

It's scratchy, every breath comes with the bouquet of synthetic hair, and stray strands are constantly finding their way into your mouth.  Even better, children can (and do) grab on to it.  Lovable scamps.  

2. I don't get paid for this.  The first year my mother slipped me a twenty, every year since I've done it because it was expected.  The strong nuclear force is the strongest known in the universe; gravity can act across an infinite distance; but in affairs of human behavior a mother's guilt is supreme.

3. I get ready at home, not at the church, and driving across town in full Santa gear is surreal every year.  I honestly feel like I'm heading to rob a bank, not inspire America's youth.  

4. Toddlers are the best.  Infant infants are usually asleep and don't care.  Babies are terrified by Santa; they bawl and wiggle while their parents hasten to take a photograph and I smile uncomfortably.  Older kids know you're not real, and sometimes even know who you really are.* When asked what they'd like for Christmas they'll give you a list of 13 things ranging from a trampoline to an Iphone.  But toddlers, toddlers take you at face value.  "Here is a nice, bushy-faced man who is giving me things, I like him."  I filled in at the local head start on Monday, handing out story books that the staff had purchased.  3-4 of the toddlers not only wanted my help in unwrapping their books, they insisted that I read it wIth them, crowding around me from all sides. I can say it's the first time in my Santa career that my heart was warmed.

5.  Photos.  Photos. Photos.  Tonight alone I was photographed with a few week old baby girl in my arms (awwww),  250lb man on my knee (wouldn't you know the camera would malfunction at that just that moment), and everything else in between.   You smile your biggest "shine through the beard" smile and throw out "Merry Christmas!" to the point you can't take it anymore.  On the third or fourth photo with that particular child you switch to "Yay us!" or "Life is beautiful!"  Or "tuna fish sandwich!"  It doesn't matter.  You just hope the child looks at the camera, gives an expression approximating that of happiness, and their parents are satisfied.  NEXT.

Every year I dread it, and every year it's not that bad.  20 more years or so and I may actually come to like it (shudders).

*Note: it doesn't help when your own mother, one of your assistants, refers to you by name.

  

Poker

I was raised around the game of Poker - and not the "Texas Hold'em" that took the world by storm in the 2000s, but instead my family's own brand of wild competition.*  Some of my fondest childhood memories are of Poker gatherings at my grandparents, festivities that saw anywhere from 10-20 relatives - close and distant -  come together for miniature-stakes gambling, cheap American beer, and general shenanigans.  At first my interest was purely selfish; poker night meant Nintendo (and Nintendo meant SUPER MARIO BROS. 3) for little Matt. 

Only as I grew did I realize that there was more to it - the game, and the family dynamics that came along with it, were to be cherished.  In nostalgic hindsight I realize that these games, although frequent, were special family moments.  I now understand why my mother was there rain or shine, even though she very rarely played.  This is what she had grown up with, this was family. Poker brought us together, poker defined Saturday night.

At the time, however, nostalgia meant little me.  The game and the culture was just so damned interesting. What was it that made this game the highlight of everyone's week?  What was it that made tempers flare and insults fly?   I was one of those perpetual question machine children:  What's higher, a straight or a flush?  What if two people both have three of a kind?  What if?  What if?  What if?   My grandparents and great uncles/aunts had been playing for decades, while my aunts and uncles had learned on the lap of the great grandparents that I would never have a chance to meet, and they indulged me all of my curiosities.  The game had its own language.  "You son of a bitch," really meant "confound you, for you have bested me this hand!"  "Ante a lick," meant the ante was .15, a dime was just as likely to be called a "thin ten," and opening for a nickel was a "sensible bet."  If the final bet of a hand was a scant nickel, the call was likely to be accompanied with "I'd pay a nickel to watch an ant piss ... I don't care whose aunt it is!"   The dealer calling "High Chicago" was met with a chorus of boos, but the boos that abated when the game was "High Chicago Roll Your Own."** 

I remember that most everyone had their favorite game:
Grandmother: Five card stud - greeted by almost universal cussing.***
Grandfather: "Suspicion" (the name we've always used for five card draw)
Uncle Steve: 3 low with 2 draws (a game that, as far as I know, he invented)
Uncle Tom: Five card stud - greeted by almost universal cussing
Aunt Lorrie and Davena: Straight seven (seven card stud) or a Chicago variation of seven card stud.
Aunt Joy: Jacks or better - five card draw but the game cannot begin (open) unless someone has at least a pair of jacks or better after the initial cards are dealt - also greeted by unanimous cussing****

As I watched and as I asked questions, I gradually learned to play the game.  And once I knew how to play, I was hooked.  I would scrounge every scrap of change in a four state area and annoy the piss out of my immediate family by asking for everything they have.  I would show up a half-hour early for every game.  I tried desperately to avoid giving my hand away*****.  I adopted the language of the game as my own.  I came to love poker.

And then it faded away.  I went to college, and even though I never left town, I lost interest in going home on Saturday nights.  Family drama broke up the core group of players with petty grudges.  The games went from weekly occurrence to special occasion, and eventually from special occasion to even more special occasion.  All good things, as the cliche goes, must end.   

Why bring this up now?  Because I had the chance to play again this past weekend for the first time in nearly two years, and it all came rushing back to me.  The family, the camaraderie, the culture, and yeah, the winning - I came out four dollars ahead of where I started (quite a bit for a game in which most bets are measured in nickels and dimes).  At the same time, the cruelty of age is this: it wasn't the same.  My grandparents weren't there, as a 9pm start was too late for them.  A couple of my cousins stayed only until they'd lost a few dollars and then went home to their kids and an early bed time.  My uncle Tom was more interested in the "Captain and Cokes" than the cards on the table.  

Time, and memory, are a cruel mistress.

* Hold'em is a perfectly adequate game that is  useful when you're trying to play poker with 20 other people (read: never).  My issue with Hold'em is that the game is reduced to sheer probabilities instead of being played by "gut."  Hold'em is a game for statisticians, not riverboat gamblers.
** Chicago is a 7-card stud variation in which half the pot goes to the person with the lowest spade in the hole (low Chicago) or highest spade in the hole (high Chicago).  All players will prefer "Roll your own" because all cards are dealt to you face down and you get to choose what is exposed.  Thus you can both disguise the quality of your hand AND avoid having the Chicago spade dealt to you face up, where it is of no use to you.
*** In five card stud you are dealt one card down and four cards up, meaning that there is very little mystery.  Grumbling results because it is not uncommon for a high pair to win a hand, nor for a hand to be determined entirely by visible cards.  Boring.
**** Jacks or Better leads to grumbling because if no one can "open," the ante must be made again and the hand must be re-dealt.  The upside of this is that Jacks can lead to some significant pots to be won.
***** My tell become just that - when I had a really good hand I would get serious and quiet.  I tried too hard to be nondescript.  

Watching Students Take Exams

Which isn't nearly as fun as watching the detectives:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sed8IjdXdGk

I am in the back of a classroom as I write this, proctoring my last final examination for the fall term.  Behind me, out the window is a lovely view of the San Bernardino Mountains, clear, crisp, and inviting.   I can sense the fear and concern with the students, convinced, despite my countless tellings, that the exam is terribly difficult, and nearly impossible.

This leads me to consider the purpose of the classic examination.  In that it usually serve to replicate knowledge rather than test analytical skill, it has some purpose, but the analysis must then be of a low order.  One student suggested a group oral exam, and I countered with an offer for individual oral examinations.  This, they explained, would have been even more terrifying than the prospect of the written exam.  Yet, the oral exam is closer to the experience of "examination" out in the "real world."

Something to consider for next year, perhaps.

The term ends

Today was my last day of classes for the fall term.  There are exams next week, and two days yet of oral presentations to hear and assess, and plenty of backlogged grading, but the last teaching day is my signal.  It has been a rough week, one that began with a brazen robbery of a messenger satchel my office in the late afternoon.  Luckily, it appears that all I lost was a can of Coke, an energy bar, and a moleskin, as Public Safety found the bag later that night, tossed aside by the thief, undoubtedly disappointed when the bag contained mostly ungraded papers and not a lap top. 

I was angry, as one might imagine, this was the second timed I had been robbed this semester, living in a city right next door to a bankrupt city has its disadvantages I suppose.  I posted on Facebook and had much sympathy from friends, which was appreciated.  Yet, I felt a bit dramatic for making such a story of it.  I was safe, and there appears to be no serious damage from the passwords that the moleskin contained.  It could have been worse, my car key was sitting in plain sight on the desk, and the thief could easily had pulled a big score with that.

Joy in Teaching

Late last week I attended a dinner of faculty.  The event, organized by the director of our center for teaching excellence, was intended to allow us a space to explain how and why, selfishly, we enjoy teaching.  It didn't work that way (asking a group of faculty to do anything so directed rarely works), but one of the exercises was "visioning," a concept at which I usually scoff, but, desiring to give the folks involved my full attention and diligence I did as asked.

One of the prompts was to describe, understood loosely, how we know that a class session is going well.  How would we describe that experience, but not as though we were answering a questions posed by a hiring committee?

So, this is what I wrote with my post-event comments in brackets:

"Fluid Lecture with an embedded Socratic experience"  [that sounds like a application letter line]

"Call and Response" [That works for me, like a preacher]

"Preaching without moralizing" [perhaps I am in the wrong profession]

"Lecture is the magic for me, not in the traditional format, but lecture as directed performance art with a large cast of characters who have differing levels of commitment to the process" [a bit wonky]

"Late hard-bop Jazz improvisation (a core of knowledge, 'the American songbook' deconstructed.  I think Horace Silver, or Lee Morgan, or Coltrane on 'Crescent.'"  [This one works - the students aren't the audience, but the band])

5 (less than obvious) things I'm grateful for

It is November after all...

1. Diet Mt. Dew.  I understand that it's composed of industrial solvents, the TMNT Ooze, and the tears of kittens, but man oh man there is no substance in the world I love more than DMD. 

2. 15 degree mornings.  The last couple of days have dawned bone-chillingly cold in Northeast Missouri.  The frigidity is a reminder that you're alive - a painful reminder when you're standing on a corner waiting for a bus full of high school kids, as I did this morning.  Humanity has survived millions of such days and we will continue to do so.  What's more, in  March or April, when those first gorgeous days of the new year emerge, we will appreciate them all the more.

3. Contact lenses and night mouth guard.  I started using the former in 2005 and the latter in 2013 and in both cases I was worried that I would hate them and they would provide nothing but irritation and heartache. In both cases I was an idiot.  Nothing much new there.

4. 2 year olds.  A coworker brought their two-year old son into the office this afternoon and I think that it would be fun to have one of these ... for about half an hour, once a week.

5. Calvin and Hobbes.  I hated it when I was twelve.  What a buffoon I was.

Basketball

The weather has turned cold and the days are dark almost before they begin, which can mean only one thing: basketball season.  I always wanted to be good at basketball. Not because I liked it - I liked football and baseball far better when I was growing up.   But it would have been cool to be a baller on the court.

I wanted to be good at basketball because it's so easy to show off in basketball, and what youngster doesn't like a chance to show off?   Even better, basketball can be played inside in the warmth, helpful when growing up where 2/3 of the year is some variation on the theme of "winter."  Early on you come to value a sport that can be played outside of mother nature's grasp.  On the court itself there were few better ways to display your awesomeness than with hot moves and the sweet (read: fucking expensive) kicks that came with them.   And the ladies, oh the ladies.  I mean, there's nothing the fairer gender love more than seeing a guy rumble down the court and slam home a dunk (or, you know, jack up a lame duck three from 30 feet,"Matt-style").* Or so I assume.  I haven't actually asked any of the lady folk about this and I am not a scientist.

Basketball is a sport for tall people.  I am not tall - I am 5' 8".  In truth, I would say that I am a shorter than 5'8".   Short arms. Short legs.  A general solidity to my frame.  I am built not to reach the sky, but to survive the harsh winters of the Taiga.  Hearty stock.  Noble stock.  Non-basketball playing stock.

Basketball is a sport for people who can jump.  I cannot jump. Ok, I can jump, as in I can propel myself off of the ground using my legs.  But I take no responsibility for the welfare of bystanders and property when I do so.  I am fond of the Earth and I prefer to stay close to its warming bosom.

Basketball is a sport for people with big hands.   Basketball is a sport for people who are fast. I have comically small hands. I'm slow, even when I try real hard.    Basketball is a sport for people with great speed and stamina, fortune favoring the player who moves best both with and without the ball.  I hate running, thinking it best employed only in cases of imminent predator attack.

So why, when all of this is considered, did I ever step foot on the court?  Call me a dreamer I guess, even though real life often knocked me a down a peg.  I played in the school league in 4th grade.  The ball was passed to me once; I traveled.  What a dumb rule anyway.  About the same time a friend convinced me to attend our hometown university's basketball camp, and I did, if only for the free meals provided in the dining hall.  I don't remember a single thing about that camp other than the fact that I attended.  I hear that sometimes the brain blocks out traumatic occurrences for our own protection.

In middle school I would trundle the 1/4 mile from the school to the local YMCA, where I would ply my wares on the court, and by that I mean I would try to perfect my half-court shot and run around like a jackass.  In hindsight, my favorite thing about going to the Y after school was that it gave me an excuse to wear shorts in February.  

I (blissfully) abstained from basketball in high school and college, but found myself once again in the hands of this cruel mistress in graduate school as a member of the History graduate intramural team.  I was half of the "Captain Jack and Mad Bomber" duo (I think i was Captain Jack?  don't ask questions).  Our nicknames were code for our status as three point specialists, which in turn was code for our status as not being good at anything else.  I didn't see the court very often, seeing as most of the guys on the team actually knew what they were doing.   My enduring memory was of a friend taking an elbow to the face from another teammate, losing a front tooth and gaining thousands of dollars worth of dental work.

So now here I sit, aged 31, with all my teeth, and still not worth at a damn at basketball.   

*My favorite plays in high level basketball are missed, or as I like to call them "bonered," dunks.  The give me no shortage of mirth.

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss

Hello again dear reader - have you missed me?  I can only hope so. Recently life has conspired to keep my pen away from the page and will likely continue to do so as November progresses.

It's been an introspective few weeks for me as I've debated whether to throw my hat in the ring for an unexpected opening on campus.  After much contemplation, I moved forward with my candidacy, as this is probably my last chance to advance at this university.  Some of you may know that I was all but certain that I would move on after this year and this opening is a bit of a Hail Mary to stay.  The position in question is relatively lucrative and is certainly a step up in responsibility, and  I am 75% perfect for it and 25% lacking, but while I might not be the best candidate for right now, I have no doubt that I'm the right candidate for a year from now and for five years from now.  Overcoming the immediate disadvantage will be the challenge.  

In this position I would be "the guy," I would be the last stop for "the buck", and the very thought of it is both energizing and terrifying.  It has sent me soul-searching into my own behavior as a manager and a leader, and has opened my eyes to both my beliefs and my inadequacies.  The irony is that should I miss out on this position, I have no doubt that pursuing it will improve my performance in my current role.  Let's follow those dreams.

Passage

Uncle Fred, the older of my mother's two brothers, passed away this morning in his sleep, apparently peacefully.  A quiet, sedate man, he preferred the side of the room to the center, and never appeared comfortable as the object of attention.  He was relatively young, still in his mid-60s.  Computers and telecommunications had been his career, one, as I understand it, that he enjoyed, and in which he had much success before retiring early to enjoy time with his wife, my Aunt Marie, and their son, James, while indulging his passion for fishing and muscle cars.  I imagine that the long hours of quiet contemplation so characteristic of fishing must have appealed to him.    As a child he suffered a severe bout of rheumatic fever which, in those days was a more serious ailment than it is now.  The illness damaged his heart, and while that never prevented him from living a full life I imagine that it contributed to his untimely demise.

I confess that I didn't get to know Uncle Fred as well as I should have, although I know that as his first niece or nephew he held a fondness for me.  Families are odd creatures, and all-too-often those who have known us before we knew them are the ones we neglect as we move out and on through our lives.  So I, and my siblings, and my mother for that matter, didn't see as much of Uncle Fred as we did his brother and his family.  It seemed normal at the time, but now represents opportunities forever lost.  I spent most of my time with him in the passenger seat of one of his half-dozen or so Hondas as he transported me from my parent's home in central Jersey to my Grandparents' farm in south Jersey.  He was an important supporting actor in the fondest and happiest memories of my childhood (or life for that matter), as he brought me to them.  During the fall he would bring vegetables and eggs up from the farm, still smelling of the soil, the house, and joy.  I remember this all quite well.

However, it is memories of his voice that have been with me all afternoon.  Uncle Fred's voice combined an odd, but pleasant, metallic note, with a velvet softness.  It seemed to mix an ethnic New York/North Jersey timbre with a Piney accent.  And that sound has always been the "note" that for me was connected to him in my mental Rolodex.  For others in my life their calling card is a particular event, or an image, but for a few, very few, that mental marker is aural, and for Uncle Fred it was his voice.  And now, that exists only in my memory.

Death, to be simple, is the culmination of life.  But for me, aside from the recent passing of the mother of one of my best friends, death has called for the individuals in my life at a generation's remove.  Uncle Fred is the first taken from the generation just before me, and that causes pause and reflection.

I imagine that you are visiting with Grandma and Grandpa right now, and sharing a story in your slow, distinctive voice.  I hope to hear it again someday.  Goodbye Uncle Fred, and godspeed.  I hear that the trout are biting.

Odds and Ends

 This dispatch comes to you from the McDonald's in Hannibal, MO.  A scheduling quirk (of my own infernal creation) gave me a five hour break between a high school visit and a financial aid talk this evening.  At the table next to me, two octagenerian fellows are having the most stereotypical conversation you can imagine, dealing with topics of where they get their weather info, how they wouldn't last too long without their medicine, and how they save money on long distance by using their children's cell phones when they come to visit.  I will spare you all the mundane details, but just know that I say in all seriousness, and with great sadness, that simply being alive is not living.  

The Chiefs game was a phenomenal experience  and I can say with only slight exaggeration that Arrowhead Stadium is my Mecca.  It went by in a blink as time spent with great friends so often does.  The Chiefs won in dramatic fashion and clung to a one point lead throughout the fourth quarter.  I am not one for fluffy words, but it was stirring as 75,000 people chanted their way of the stadium, drunk on both alcohol and victory.

On Fasting, of a particular sort

I have been observing a news fast since the passage of the temporary funding bill and the end of the government shutdown (which really wasn't a shutdown but rather a selective punishment of certain portions of the American public by the legislative and executive branches).  I was spending far too much time reading the news, watching the news, trolling blogs and punditry sites, obsessively checking various news feeds and Twitter.  I never learned anything from these efforts of which I was  not already aware.  Now, in my line of work, I have to stay somewhat abreast of goings-on, so I cannot sustain this fast for long, but I am willing to push a bit, see how long that might be.

It has provided me with an insight into my personality, which suggests that I have something of an addictive relationship with certain forms of media and content.  On one level I can convince myself that one more source, one more blog will provide that extra bit of information, a problem from which I suffer in my own research (which has had a deleterious effect upon my production of said scholarship), and this is certainly what I tell my students.  But there is so very little worthwhile to be read on-line or in watching the news, regardless of the provider.  Even PBS no longer provides the kind of serious, erudite insight into contemporary politics that it once did.

I do find myself idling in other ways, and so the next step is to find a way t channel that restless need into something more productive.

Let's do this

Although I have been a Kansas City Chiefs fan for as long as I can remember, so much so that they were the subject of my college admission essay, I have never been to a game in person.  Until this Sunday, that is.  Thanks to a fortunate and generous friend I will be a part of the chaos as the Chiefs take on the Houston Texans at 3:25pm.   80,000 people, a sea of red, and some hellacious tailgating ... I am f*cking pumped. 

Some levity after a long week of Congressional idiocy

I have driven by this sign for more than two years and it is still as funny as the first time.  Read the words carefully.

Political Dysfunction

As I write this, the House is considering a proposal that would end the shutdown and raise the debt ceiling, yet news continues to emerge that even at the moment there may not be enough votes to pass, even with all Democrats voting in favor.  Then the bill, if passed, would go onto the Senate, where several Tea-Party affiliated senators have not indicated whether they plan to filibuster the bill, or try to push through a series of doomed amendments.

I have a creeping sense that there are some on the R side of the ledger who want to call the President's bluff on the 17 October "default" deadline.  It isn't a real deadline, and the Federal government would still be able to pay its bills for at least a week on the basis of its daily cash flow.  Thus if midnight passes without an agreement and the markets don't collapse today or tomorrow, the administration will have lost a great deal of creditability.  Now, the markets would eventually react, probably on Friday or next week, with a sizable, but not catastrophic sell-off, but the damage might be temporary.  With nowhere else safe to go, investors will probably sit and hope for a solution.  The fly in the ointment might be foreign holders of short-tern treasuries, who might dump them. 

Life, not to be wasted

History appeals to me for many reasons, not the least of which is the unending evidence it provides that civilization is the thinnest veneer over the base and vile creatures we are, especially in the aggregate.  Yet, I am not a misanthrope, because in the individuals that life and circumstance and God (or god, or fate, or however one looks at this) have brought in and out of my life lies the joy of that life.  Thus I hold friendships dearly, and stay in tough with old flames, and nurture relationships with mentors, even when the immediate need for that mentoring had long dissipated. 

Last weekend one of those mentors died, in a single-car wreck on I95 in South Carolina.  Mark Finlay was a professor of history at Armstrong Atlantic State University, where I worked for two years.  It was my first position after completing my doctorate.  It wasn't the best job, a heavy teaching load, located not in Savannah at the main campus, but at a branch campus location shared with an unemployment office out in the sticks (literally). 

Combined with the parsimonious Georgia legislature's attitude toward spending on higher education (summarized as follows: don't spend money on them colleges, especially on degrees that are all about thinking just makes liberals who won't work for peanuts) it was a rough two years spent worrying about when the campus might be closed (it was briefly), and when I might have the opportunity to compete for a tenure-track position (the answer was never).  I knew all of this going in, but one of the many reasons I accepted the position (I had another offer), was that when I met Mark during my interviews it was clear that he had read my file, carefully and fully even though, because he was the assistant Dean, he couldn't participate in the department's vote (a quirk of faculty governance, a topic for another time).  Later that spring, he made a point of coming to hear a paper that I presented at the Agricultural History Conference.

He worked hard to acclimate me to the realities of working at a teaching institution, and fully supported my efforts to find another position when it became clear there was little hope for advancement at Armstrong.  He trusted me as a scholar to ask me to complete some research for a project upon which he was working that required perusing records in Wyoming, and he was willing to write a letter on my behalf when I came up for retention at my current institution.  Yet he was not just a good-time charlie, he pushed me on my scholarship, and my teaching, and made it clear that the academic life is one of hard labor, and often small rewards, but part of a grand tradition.  He took life seriously (and that meant being serious, but also taking fun, seriously).

Living the Dream

My work vehicle is a 2009 Dodge Grand Caravan, the first such vehicle I've had with middle windows that actually roll down.  This is relevant.

This past Wednesday I was driving back to campus on a two lane highway, cruising at about 65mph.  I had been hounded by a fly on my entire hour+ trip, and my methods - namely rolling the front window down - had thus far failed to remove the pest.  If I sit back and look at it as a physicist, this is unsurprising.  It must be said that at this juncture I did not have my "physicist" hat on.  I was "over" this fly.  

I decided the solution to this nuisance was to roll down all of the van's windows and thereby to increase my odds of blasting this fly into the atmosphere and out of my life.  It was as foolproof a plan as I had at my disposal, short of mutually assured destruction.    It must be said, however, that I had forgotten about the box of tumblers in the back seat of the van, tumblers intended as counselor gifts, tumblers, more importantly,  packed in packing peanuts.   So I rolled the windows down and the van filled with the wind tunnel feel you would expect.  Life is good.  And then the packing peanuts started to fly.  Everywhere.  At me.  Around me.  Out the window.  Back in the other window. I had turned this minivan into a 65mph snow globe.  I screamed.  I rolled the windows up.

I will be picking up packing peanuts for weeks.

A good day to rail

Both Scott and I took advantage of my 31st birthday to express our frustration at the world around us - be sure to read the two posts below.

Idiocy - or any DMV

If there is a den of state incompetence more visceral than the California DMV then I am beggared to conceive of what that could be (with the exception of its prison system which is in direct confrontation with the courts on the issue of cruel and unusual punishment). 

Witness me, mild-mannered, punctual, and polite.  I have an appointment to take my written driver's test (an additional indignity in and of itself given that I have held driving licenses in four other states).  Assuming that there would be paperwork to complete before I sat for my exam (which I naively assumed was the purpose for the appointment), I arrived twenty minutes in advance.  When I approached the line for folks with appointments, I was brusquely asked for the time of my appointment, and after providing my printed confirmation of appointment (something no one else seemed to have) was told that I could not enter the line earlier than five minutes prior to my appointment.  So, the appointment time is actually an appointment to enter the line to wait, not to engage in the transaction for which you have made the appointment (despite that you are required to provide then making the appointment).  You wait in line to prove that you have the paperwork for an appointment, and then told to sit and wait your turn to speak with one of the clerks.  In that queue, you receive no advantage for making an appointment, and are served in the order you finally made it to the check-in line.

When finally, 45 minutes after my scheduled appointment I was called to take my written exam,  I proceeded to a dirty, nasty room without chairs and supervised by a state employee with but one speaking volume - loud, who when not correcting exams (I was one of only 2 people out of ten taking the exam who passed), was dealing with "difficult" cases from the main room.  Not a reasonable testing environment.  It staggers me that as a society we sent people to the moon using little more than JP4 and transistors, yet we cannot figure out how to take the stupid out of people, or execute a smooth operating plan for the DMV.

Do you have any sense?

The more time I've spent in admissions, the more reluctant I have become to automatically complain about the younger generation, "those damned Millenials.".  When I was 19, thirty-one year old's probably complained about me, and I understand that.  However..

I am not fierce patriot.  I wouldn't have the patience to properly fold a flag, and I feel silly when circumstances find me having to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in a high school.   However, none of this means that don't appreciate the soldiers who have fought in wars for the United States of America, whether I agreed with those wars or not, or frankly, was even alive at the time.   In front of my building is the University's Veterans' Memorial: it's not much in the grand scheme, just some brass plaques on a brick wall, plaques commemorating the names of the university alumni who have perished in America's Wars.  90% of the time I pass by them without a thought, but there are occasions when I will stop and examine these plaques.  Where were these students from? How did they find themselves in Flanders, Korea, or Vietnam?  How did they perish?  Heavy thoughts.   

Across the walkway from these plaques is a bronze sculpture of a father holding his son's purple heart.  The sculpture was dedicated on Veterans Day 2011 to quite a bit of fanfare.  Ask most visitors about the sculpture, however, and they'll likely tell you that A) it looks like the guy is standing there texting, or B) they thought it was a real man and it creeped them out.  Very few of them will stop to examine it or ponder what it represents.  None of this is surprising.  

Fast forward to this afternoon: I was standing near the front door of my building, eating the delicious cinnamon ice cream a coworker brought me for my birthday, and gazing idly out of the front windows.  A female student - a student ambassador I come to learn - comes whizzing through our parking lot on a bike and I follow her progress with my eyes.  She flies up to our building, dismounts, and without a second thought leans her bike up against the Veterans' sculpture.   

I'm usually not a confrontational person; in fact,  I think I could benefit from being more so.    But to paraphrase the Dude, in some cases "This aggression will not stand, man."  How did this ever seem "appropriate?"  How did this ever seem like something one should do?  

 I immediately accost this student as she walks in and ask her to move her bike.  
M: Could you please move your bike so it's not leaning on the sculpture?
S: Ugggggggh.   All I need to do is find out if I have a tour.
M:  I'm not usually confrontational, but it's a memorial, not a bike stand.  
S:  Uggggghh  (walks out).
M: THANK YOU!  (literally yelled as she exits in a huff)

So this is a student, a student hand chosen to represent this university to prospective students, 1. thinks it's ok to lean her bike against our Veterans Memorial, and 2. feels put upon when someone asks her to move it.   

Kids these days.

Standstill

The great American wit, Will Rogers, once quipped that he wasn't a member of any organized party, he was a Democrat.  At the time, the 1920s, the Democratic Party was a roiling mess of constituencies that generally disliked one another, and often actively hated their party compatriots when they gave it any real thought.  Urban immigrant, working class, wets (anti-prohibition), often Catholic, distrusted their rural, native-born, dry, fellow party members, who in turn provided the largest sources of recruits for the resurgent Ku Klux Klan.  Southern Democrats lived in a one-party state that equated the opposition party with civil insurrection, miscegenation, and the death of society, while Northern party members had decades of experience working with Republicans in temporary coalitions.  In a competitive party environment they had no other choice.  Urban democrats were less wary of state effort, while their rural cousins equated an active state with high taxes and "high livin'" on the backs of honest farmers.  Unable to reconcile these divisions the Democrats looked more like a civil war than a political party throughout the decade, requiring 103 ballots to nominate a presidential candidate in 1924.

I have been ruminating on this history as I view the current budget gridlock in Congress and the government shutdown (we could talk for hours about how this isn't actually a shutdown  - it isn't).  Being a historian, I am a cynic.  My own politics are non-partisan, and my scholarship only reinforces my sense that neither party cares more for the nation than they do politics and that we live in an age where Statesmen are non-existent.  Yet, I have a bit of sympathy for John Boehner, the Speaker of the House.  I dislike his politics, certainly, and his swarmy relationships with K Street, but I do recognize an essentially decent person caught with no real alternatives (bearing in mind that that my definition sets a low bar - he is someone no more or less venal and small-minded than the others of his community - in this case, politicians).   His party caucus, both in the House and in Congress at large, is much like the Democratic Party of the 1920s.  It contains constituencies who fear one another more than they fear the opposition.  The Tea Party ranks are small, but the number of House Republicans who fear Tea Party primary battles is nearly as large as their total caucus. Establishment Republicans see the Tea Party types as undisciplined and uncontrollable, and, explicitly populist, a dangerous mix for the Business Roundtable and Chamber of Commerce types who stand behind the stalwarts.  And much like the irreconcilable division in the 1920s between Democratic wets and drys (a dry was always utterly dry - to admit to allowing drink, even strictly regulated, was to admit to the need for drink, something a dry could not hold and continue to believe that prohibition was a positive good), the Tea Party members of the House hold that compromise (with the opposition or within their own party) on issues of spending, taxes, regulation, and state action is antithetical to their core understanding of themselves. To compromise is to reject their identity.  The Establishment wing simply wants to move on as they have been, quite successfully for the last 30 years, slowly dismantling the New Deal state (often with the help of centrist Democrats) and reducing the impediments to unfettered business action.  They are happy to use their Tea Party colleagues to rile up the base of the party, but have no intention of permitting them to do as they want. The Tea Party caucus understands this, and so puts John Boehner in an impossible situation

Unable to reconcile these two wings of his caucus, Boehner is forced to sustain the minority position, for fear that he will lose all control, to say nothing of the speakership, and the center of gravity in the Party. 

Damn This Bleeding Heart

Listening (by coincidence) to Everybody Wants to Rule the World, Tears for Fears

I don't like talking about politics.  Not because I am opposed to sharing ideas, but because political discussions are so rarely about sharing ideas, and instead focused on explaining to the other person (who is obviously a dim bulb in the first place or they wouldn't disagree with you to begin with) why you are right and they are wrong.  

The current fiasco in Washington doesn't make me angry, nor righteously indignant.  No, it makes me sad.  Sad that the motivation of certain House members is not the good of the people of their districts, nor the people of their country, but instead obstructionism, attention-seeking, and grandstanding.  Sad that people willfully elected these wingnuts who spout bullshit and sometimes can't even form coherent sentences, and that their domination of state legislatures means that  US Congressional Districts have been redrawn to insure that their brand of wing-nuttery will prosper in the future.  Sad that American conservatism can be held hostage by a minority (between 30 and 80 house members, depending upon who you ask) and that the speaker of the house won't do anything about it.  

My problem isn't that these house members - and ostensibly their consituencies - are conservative, nor that they label themselves as Republican.  My problem isn't that they're religious and I'm not, nor that they own guns, and I don't.  My problem is that they are willfully ignorant, intolerant, reactionary, and somehow all believe that they can gain their party's nomination  for president in 2016.  My problem is that they believe what they believe because they believe it, and for no other reason.  My problem is that they have been elected to serve but  instead are using their position to extort extreme concessions on a bill that both the Supreme Court and a voting American populace have upheld - concessions intended to knock the President down a peg, concessions intended to demonstrate the power of their particular brand of zealotry, and concessions that, worst of all, are intended to get them time on TV. 

And now they won't back down, because to do so is to admit defeat and to accept humiliation.  So government will remain shutdown, and this faction will no doubt convince their district that they are martyrs, like the defenders at Masada.

Editor's Note: The Affordable Care Act is not socialized medicine, not in any meaningful way.  HOWEVER, There are some ways in which socialized medicine is actually really cool.  Just the other day I heard that a strong correlation has been found between a pregnant mother's level of gluten autoimmunity and the chances of Autism in her offspring.  Essentially, a mother that has a significant autoimmune response to gluten (whether she knows she has it or not) is far more likely to have an autistic child.  Was this correlation unearthed by private industry?  Nope - it was found by analyzing blood samples and the other exhaustive records kept on every Swedish infant - records that exist because of the country's socialized medical system.  

Nocturne

I'm in a hotel in Springfield, IL, typing this on my phone. As you can likely guess, typing a post on one's phone is quite the pain in the ass, but it is out of my love for you that I suffer willingly, dear reader.

My room has a king-sized bed, and I never know what to do with one.  I feel like I'm sleeping in a swimming pool, and there's no doubt that I will wake up several times during the night wondering how I got onto the roof, only to realize I'm just in a stupidly large bed.  The dulcet tones of non-stop I-55 traffic will carry me off to slumber in the way that only diesel can.  Government shutdown, biblical plague, alien invasion; the freight must go on.

 I have six pillows and deciding which to lie my massive dome on is the hardest decision I'll have today. Luckily my unconscious mind is equal opportunity, and as I sleep my head will skip between them like a frog on lilypads.  

There's a whirlpool bath, and no, I didn't use , but from the warning signage the hotel has placed in the bathroom, it seems like a barrel of fun.  I have taken to a cold shower before bed every evening, as I believe it helps with sleep, with hormones, and immunity.  Since it leads one to dance around and curse like a sailor, I can only assume that it relieves stress as well.

Yours in prairieness,
Matt

Jewel of the Fleet

A conversation with a high school senior had me reminiscing about my first vehicle.  

Sometimes a manufacturer produces a product so simple, so beautiful, and so effective that it completely changes our lives: the Iphone, the refrigerator, and Sour Patch Kids, for example.  The 1987 Mercury Topaz, my first car, was not one of those things.  But like us all, it played the hand it was dealt.

 She began her life with us as the family's primary vehicle.   She was white with crimson interior and  was not destined to win any beauty pageants.  Her four cylinder engine was capable of reaching breakneck speeds of almost 55mph and probably produced the power of a small horse or two.  The seats were covered in vinyl - vinyl that on a hot summer day could absorb all of the Earth's available heat and then conduct it directly into the delicate skin on my ass.  There was no CD player - hell there wasn't even a cassette deck - but the knob driven AM/FM radio seemed sufficient at the time.  She had manual windows, manual locks, and if it had air conditioning I doubt it worked by the time she was mine.  

Subjected to two young children with a propensity for fast food and wonton destruction, the Topaz almost immediately assumed an odor best described as "despair."  We spilled, we dropped, we forgot.  I remember a day trip to Hannibal and Mark Twain Lake during which I dumped the entirety of a Dairy Queen Blizzard in the back floorboard.  This seems a tragic waste of soft-serve goodness in hindsight. 

Aging like a banana on the counter, the Topaz was passed onto my sister round about 1996.  She continued to deliver the standard of care the Topaz was accustomed to, but this time with the added bonus of a fender bender or two.  But like any old soldier it survived, if with less spring in its step, until it reached me - its true master.  

I ran that Topaz like an old Cowboy does his most trusted horse, all over creation, or at least as far as my grocery store job could buy gas.  We were inseparable and we were indestructible ... until the fall of my junior year of high school.  If I recall correctly it was September of 1999, and as a new school year dawned I was finally allowed to drive myself to and fro every day.  Looking back, there are few greater freedoms in our young lives, and at that age we are dumb, we are reckless, and we are invincible.  It was in that spirit that I barreled through a stoplight (thinking about the things that 16 year old boys think about) when I happened upon a line of cars stopped in the middle of the street.  Hell of a thing for a line of cars to do on a perfectly good street, don't you think?*  Regardless, I tried to stop, I really did, but stop I did not.  I plowed the Topaz into the rear car, in turn pushing it  (at a slightly lesser speed) into the next one in line.  That's right, with one fell swoop I pissed off multiple people, earned a chance to have a nice chat with a policeman, and had my first (and to this point, only) trip to a courtroom.  

You know the worst part, the real bitch of the situation?  The Topaz took the worst of it.  She was shorter than the bumper on the car I hit, so instead of bumping that bumper with my own, I instead forced it through the grill (well, if there had been a grill - it had been missing for several years), through the radiator, and into the guts of the operation.  It had to be towed home, and eventually my saint of an uncle pieced it back together from scrap yard parts and various things he found in various ditches.  But with all of the king's horses and all of the king's men he couldn't fix the transmission - not without fully replacing it at the cost of thousands of dollars for a car worth $100, maybe - so it leaked transmission oil for the rest of its life, and twice a week or so I would have to refill it.  Even worse, the shattered transmission would perform admirably up to about 35mph, at which point it was disinclined to shift higher, or go any faster.  Thus we spent our final 18+ months together at a leisurely pace, which actually turned out to be helpful...

It was the next fall, probably October of 2000, when the Topaz and I had our next adventure.  I had just turned 18 - and that fact somehow qualified me to operate a 650 degree F conveyor oven - so I had moved to the grocery store pizza shop.  I was to open the shop at 9am one fall Saturday morning and I rose and prepared as I normally would.  I walked outside to find it was cool and the world was covered in dew, but I thought nothing of it.  This would become relevant.  I leapt** into the Topaz, fired her up, and backed out of the driveway ... but I backed too far, taking her back wheels off of our gravel and onto the downward slope of bedewed grass that began where the driveway ended  The Topaz, being light, underpowered, and fundamentally wounded from the year before, got stuck on the slick grass and she wasn't going to budge.  So I stopped and I did what a person does in this case: I pondered the situation.  My mom wasn't home and my dad was taking advantage of a chance to sleep in.  Attracting anyone's attention to this situation would only lead to embarrassment, which was out of the question.  So how could I get the Topaz back and going all by my lonesome?  Quite the conundrum ... and then it hit me: I'd leave it in drive (hell, it wasn't going anywhere anyway) and I would get out and push it up to the top, where, being an obedient, rational being, it would just stop and wait for me to get back in.  Like a horse, except, you know, mechanical.  Imagine my surprise when I pushed, it got to the top of the slope, and it kept going. 

 There really isn't a chapter on this in the textbook of life, so I did what seemed prudent - I chased after it.   Luckily it turned away from homes and towards the grassy lots to the south of our house.  I chased it.  I even caught it once, managing to get the door open and almost getting myself in before falling to the grass, thereby resigning myself to watch it from there.  It was at that moment that little baby Jesus may have taken the wheel himself, as it crashed softly, so very softly, into some bushes and stopped dead in its tracks.   My dad watched the whole affair out of my parents' bedroom window and all he could do was shake his head.  

The next May, I graduated from high school and used the proceeds of my graduation party to buy a new car - the car I still have.***  The Topaz was put out to pasture, never again to be mistreated by a Magruder.  We had done enough.

*full disclosure: this line of four cars were waiting for the car in front to turn left, which was in turn waiting for the traffic going the other way.
**using creative license here.  neither the Topaz nor I ever did much leaping at this point.
*** What can I say, I get attached.
****It just occurred to me that a friend once bought a vintage pornographic magazine at our town's short-lived "adult store" and left it in my car, under the front passenger's seat.  I had no idea it was there until months later when putrid smell sent me to investigate every nook and cranny of the interior, only to find a rotting porn mag was the culprit.  He thought that was hilarious.

Financial Aid

On five occasions throughout the school year, we host large Saturday campus visit events at which hundreds of families attend from as far as six hours away.   For the past couple of years I have been fortunate enough to give our "financial aid" presentations on these days.  I really do enjoy giving these (two back to back) presentations for three reasons: 1. I enjoy talking, possibly more than anything else in this world, 2. it gives me an excuse to insert pictures of puppies into a presentation* and 3. this is absolutely crucial information for families as they work with their child to make a college decision.  I usually have about 100-120 total people attend these presentations - parents at rapt attention, usually with scowls upon their face; students, bored to death and possibly sleeping on their neighbor's shoulder.  I sympathize with the children: it's hard to process anything when we're 17, let alone the reality that these loans will be OURS and they are OURS to pay back and that can take a WHILE and one day this will mean A GREAT DEAL to us but today is NOT THAT DAY. 

If we take cold calling apathetic high school students who have a penchant for hanging up on you out of the running, financial aid is probably the hardest thing about working in college admissions.  It's important, crushingly so.  It makes college a reality for some students and it destroys dreams for others.  It swells the ranks at the community college and stifles the small, private college.  It keeps parents awake at night and occasionally leads them walk into our office, eyes red with tears.  The problem is simple: there isn't enough money.*

There are those who think they deserve a full ride by the grace of God, and there are those who will scrimp and save and take every dollar worth of loans that they can get, and still can't cover costs.  Regardless of motive, this is a problem.  For reasons good and bad, people don't have savings.  For reasons that pass my understanding, many parents don't want to contribute to their child's college education.***  College is getting more expensive, sometimes shamefully so.  College is a business, and if nobody pays, no school stays afloat.  Aside: states are cutting, swapping, and dealing education funding, while in the land of my birth, right-wing nut job legislators would rather posture about nullifying federal gun laws than accomplish anything.  I understand if they would like our state to be known for more than meth amphetamine (but hey, with Breaking Bad that's cool now, right?) and the adult superstores along side I-70, I just wish they had chosen a tactic other than "hey everybody, we're idiots AND SOMEBODY VOTED FOR US"  

Anyway, on Saturday afternoon I will take that stage to an expectant audience, one that is hoping I can provide them with the secret to a full ride.****  Instead I will give them all the info that they can handle and puppies. They're probably going to leave disappointed.  

*Yes, there are puppies.  And it is awesome.

**  My institution has nothing to be ashamed of when it comes to tuition and aid, and yet people still struggle to close the gap.  THAT is a problem.

*** Favorite reasons given for this:

      1. We paid $20,000 a year for private high school so we wouldn't have to pay for college.  (anvil drops on their head)

      2. My parents didn't contribute to my college education, why should we?  (remind them that college was 30 bucks a credit hour at that point, then anvil drops on their head.)

**** Here it is - are you ready?  Really?  Can you handle it?  Ok.  The secret to a full ride is  your child somehow becoming Lebron James overnight.  Good luck.  

  

Fat Loss, Episode 2: Food, Exercise, and Sleep

I had literally written 1,500 words on the standard American diet and why it sucks and who is to blame when it came to me: this is dumb, get to the point your flowery bastard.  So here we go.

Food:
- Eat whole, natural foods that can be easily identified as "food."  That means lots of meats and lots of vegetables.  Base every meal around these, the two most nutrient dense and valuable sources of food we have.

- Fat is not bad.  In fact, fat is awesome, and its the most likely explanation for why we got here in the first place.  Our ginormous brain, the one that allowed us to invent Sour Patch Kids and the McDouble, is largely due to an evolutionary diet that included tons and tons of nutritionally dense fat.  Marrow.  Organs.  Yes, even other brains, allowed us to build our brains.   Good fats from EVOO, butter, grass fed beef, cold water fish, avocados, and the like are the body's preferred source of energy, and a body that is adapted to deriving its energy from fat is a body that is more able to burn the fat it has already stored.  Oh, and that's another thing - if our body didn't like fat, why would it store energy for later in a fatty form?

- Excluding the aforementioned vegetables, carbohydrates (sweets, refined grains, and fruits) are largely unnecessary and often deleterious to health.   There is nothing that fruit gives us that veggies can't give us without the damaging sugars.  Gluten from wheat, rye, barley is implicated in about 190 human diseases and I firmly believe, if nothing else, that it is really bad for me and is generally to be avoided.  Starches like sweet potatoes, rice, and white potatoes have their use in restoring muscle glycogen for the very active among us.  Other than that, the only reason to eat dense carbs is that you like them, which is fine, unless your goal is burning fat.

- Intermittent fasting can be beneficial for fat loss and general health, and three meals a day is arbitrary.  We certainly didn't evolve over millions of years eating at defined intervals everyday.  We progressed as a species eating a lot when we had a lot, and not at all when we had nothing.  That's one argument for the body's super-efficient fat-storing procedure - we had pressing reasons to store our energy for later.    Digestion is an intense, demanding process, one that consumes a great deal of calories itself.  After a meal a great deal of the body's resources are consumed by the digestive process.  As a result, digestion, though very important to our health, does divert resources from other bodily repair processes.  By eating 3 meals a day (or six small meals, as was long recommended for weight loss) we are constantly digesting something, with no break.  There are any number of fasting protocols - one 24 hour fast per week, only eating in an 8 hour window (skipping breakfast, eating lunch and dinner, generally my preference), or even eating in a 6 hour window (eating late lunch and dinner) - and all give the body a respite from the rigors of digestion and a chance to restore other tissues.  There is also some evidence that fasting helps primates live longer and decreases the incidence of diseases as we age.

Sleep:
This one's pretty simple: sleep more.  Sleep a lot.  Sleep is awesome.  In modern life, this is probably the most unappreciated facet of health.  In the negotiation of life, we often take, and take, and take from our sleep - to get things done for work or for our kids, to watch the tv show we couldn't get to before, and sometimes just because we don't like going to bed.  The problem with this is that sleep is truly one of the body's miracle drugs.  Not only do our brain and tissues repair and recharge during sleep, but this is also when the body bathes in its highest levels of powerful hormones like human growth hormone and testosterone.  These hormones burn fat and build muscle - very good things.  Shortened or low quality sleep we don't get as strong of a hormone response, and thus we get lesser results.  In fact, it is very possible that a person who is doing everything right except for their sleep may not get any results at all.  We are generally told that we should get 6-8 hours per night for optimum health, and many people struggle to get the 6.  However, in reality our general recommendations should probably be 8-10 hours per night, with flexibility based upon the time of year - in summer, when it's light more, sleep less.  In winter, when it's dark more, sleep more.

Exercise:
In short, more is not more.  Ok, there's an exception - walking.  Walking is great for the mind and body, and instituting more walking into one's life is one of the easiest and most effective health changes any person can make.  I try to walk at least an hour a day, in addition to any other purposely movement    Exercise has long been portrayed as the cure-all for fat loss and health, when it very much is not.  Exercise is a stress, a stress designed help your body cope with more stress.   Take lifting weights, for instance: an intense weight-training session actually makes the utilized muscles weaker, in the short term.  You have damaged them and it will take time for your body to repair and reinforce. The purpose of it all is that when the recovery process is complete, the muscles will be capable of better handling future stress.  But even beneficial stress is still stress, and there comes a point where the detriment outweighs the benefit - oh hey there chronic cardio.  Chronic, steady state cardio (jogging, ellipticals, stair climbers, etc.) of more than 20 minutes in duration has long been cast in the role as "fat burner," and it is true that this prolonged exercise is burning calories while you're exercising.  The prolonged nature is also producing stress hormones like cortisol - which promotes fat storage - because the body itself, namely the sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight) doesn't know that the chronic exercise is just for fun.   All the body knows is that it's having to do something really unpleasant for a really long time and likely running from something, so it has to engage the mechanisms to protect itself.  Not only that, steady state cardio burns little to no calories after the exercise is complete and is really good at making you really hungry.

So what should the goal of exercise be, then?  To me, you're looking for exercise that:
1. is intense enough to provoke an adaptation, while short enough that it doesn't overload the stress system.
2. burns calories during and after the actual exercise
3. is an efficient use of time

So what meets these requirements?

1. Weight training.  Lifting heavy weights is not only provides an intense workout during the act, it also provides the most long term metabolic benefits.  Damaging and rebuilding muscle means that your body will be burning more calories than normal for days after the actual workout.  Muscle also has a high metabolic cost, which means that your body will burn more calories, require more calories, and can tolerate more calories.  All good things in maintaining or losing body fat.

2. High Intensity Interval Training (aka Burst Training): these short "sprints" punctuated by rest can be running, stationary bike, rowing machine, or airdyne machine.  The goal is to do a series of balls to the wall work, rest, go balls to the wall, rest.  And balls to the wall doesn't mean try harder than normal, it means go as hard as you can.  As a fatty, I generally do intervals on the stationary bike of 20 seconds of madness followed by about 80 seconds of rest, and repeat.   If you don't feel like shit at the end you didn't do it right.  In a very short amount of time you not only get a hell of a workout, you create an oxygen debt that your body has to repay for several hours afterward, which equals burning more calories long after you've left the gym.  In fact, one of the most humbling things in the world is the tabata protocol: 20 seconds of all out work, 10 seconds of rest, then repeat for 8 sets.  Yes, less than 5 minutes of work and it makes you seriously rearrange your live priorities.  

And did I mention walking?  Walking is about the second best thing you can do for yourself.  The first?  Sleep.  Duh.

*jogging is also hell on the knees, killer on the feet (plantar fasciitis anybody?), and usually undertaken in sneakers that our feet, ankles, calves, and knees were not designed to utilize.  Oh, and those who chronically job are more likely to have thickened heart walls and the bad things that you would expect to arise from thickened heart walls.

On Dignity

I am not a rabid fan of college football (and ignore the professional league), but rather a life-long fan of one team.  When that team is on the television I will watch and usually talk with any of the several of my siblings who are also fans (of that team in particular).  But when that game is done, I am done with football until they play again. However, football is all pervasive on television on fall Saturdays, and one cannot but hear other scores.  This weekend, four games struck me as evidence of the deep moral emptiness of much of college football.

1. #4 ranked Ohio state beat Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University 76-0
2. #7 ranked Louisville beat Florida International University 72-0
3. #16 Miami (of FL) beat Savannah State 77-7
4. #20 Baylor beat the University of Louisiana-Monroe 70-7

These were simply the most egregious examples of running up scores over clearly over-matched opponents, the Idaho State- (#17) Washington and  (#8) Florida State-Bethune-Cook games were nearly as egregious, but fell just short of the low standard set by their aforementioned colleagues.

To be blunt (as in Mack truck blunt), each of these winners (and coaches, athletic directors, and university presidents)  should be ashamed of themselves, and we as fans should be ashamed of them as well.  To applaud this kind of needless humiliation is to applaud the 6th Grader who beats up a kindergarten student, regardless of the provocation.  Just because we can do something is not reason enough to act that way.  Why should we glory in the humiliation of others?  What faith or creed not arranged by lunatics suggests that we should?  It is appalling that the NCAA permits Division I football teams to schedule opponents at the I-AA or II level.  That alone illustrates the complete moral vacuum which is the NCAA (hardly surprising I suppose from an organization which refused to issue the death penalty to a program that knowingly protected and abetted a serial child molester and rapist and pedophile).

The counter-argument, as always, issues forth from the simple-minded market enthusiasts, "those schools knew what they were doing; they were eager for the payout and the exposure."  That is true, as these schools each probably collected a minimum of $800,000 and perhaps more.  Yet, that money went to the schools, not to the players.  The screwy nature of our bizarre macho-killer-exceptionalist-shownoweakness culture means that every one of the defeated coaches has to state their public happiness at the sportsmanship of their opponents; to note their late game efforts to hold down the score! http://scores.espn.go.com/ncf/recap?gameId=332640194  is just one example.  I have no doubt that they believe what they say, which just illuminates how ingrained humiliation is in college football. This is how hegemony works, even the oppressed cannot conceive of their oppression.

It is unlikely that this pattern of behavior will change, lamentably.  But we should at least acknowledge this and work to make something positive from it.  We could start by eliminating the stats in the record books that come from these kinds of games.  The NCAA should set a high minimum payment (at least $3 million dollars) which must be made into the endowments of their opponent in addition to covering all direct costs of the game.  The DI school should be responsible for the entire cost of all injuries inflicted on their down-schedule opponent during the game. 

Fat loss, Episode 1: The Beginnings

Author's Note: the following posts present my opinion and do not generally agree with conventional wisdom.  They come from the perspective of fat loss for male, which is completely different, and frankly much easier, than fat loss for a female.  You are welcome to disagree with me but that is not the point.

The last time I stepped on a scale (Friday morning), all of my awesomeness weighed in at 276.5lbs.  That is a substantial chunk of awesomeness.  When it comes up in conversation, people universally say "Surely you don't weigh that much!"  While I appreciate that sentiment, gravity doesn't give a damn.  Although the severity has varied, I have been perpetually overweight since I was six years old.  At my heaviest in the spring of 2003-4, I recall weighing around 330lbs.   I have no excuse for that - I like food (and drink), I'll never be tall, and for much of my life I would have climbed a tree to avoid exercise.  I have battled this weight with success on occasion: in two different periods in adulthood I have lost north of 40lbs, and in both cases my motivation was a girl.  Between June of 2004 and August of 2005 I actually lost about 90lbs to reach 240 - proof of the power of a young man's hormones.   After grad school, more eating and less activity saw me generally in the 270s and 280s.  Between January and June of 2011 I lost 48 lbs and reached 230 - my lowest weight as an adult.  Now I sit here at 276.5 because I like beer, a lot.  I like food, a lot.  And a girl (or any other person, really) is a shitty reason to do anything.  

I write this post, and those that follow, as a method of accountability as I once more head down the path of lifestyle transformation.  This time I do it for me; I do it because I'll be 31 in two weeks and for the rest of my life my cells will only do things more reluctantly and less efficiently.  I do it because I will never be a world class athlete but I believe that I can be strong, agile, and robust, if I give myself a chance.

   The truth of my current weight is that it's actually about 8lbs less than I was about a month ago.  An even more important truth is that it's largely irrelevant.  Weight, though it measures the "heaviness" of an object, tells you nothing about the "health" of that object.  A person purposely starving may lose 20lbs of water and lean tissue, thereby lessening their scale reading while certainly lessening their health.  A person deprived of anything in order to decrease that scale reading will most likely return whence they came, eventually.  A 140lb marathoner may die of a heart attack at 50 while a 250lb weight lifter may outlive them by 40 years.  

I remember my past weights because they have been a siren calling us to the rocks.  It's quantifiable, allowing us to see our results and feel good about what we are doing.  The problem is that this becomes an obsession, a neurosis.  We step on the scale everyday - even multiple times a day - hoping for that affirmation.  Yesterday a Facebook acquaintance of mine posted a self-portrait in which they were in a gym wearing sweat pants and a hoodie, captioning it as getting ready to "sweat it out for 30 minutes of HIIT* before a weigh-in", like she was a high school wrestler.    This particular person is getting married and has had some great results in the past few months, but photos like this make me worry for their long term success, their health, and their sanity.  Weight turns us into raving lunatics.

It is with all of this in mind that I will focus on the harder to quantify in a number but easy to notice metrics of:
 - how I look
 - how i feel
 - how I perform

My goals will focus on habit change, fat loss and muscle gain, not weight loss.  
- Prioritize sleep by sleeping and waking at the same time everyday, seven days a week.
- Make wise food choices second nature, "default" selections
- Fit into size 38 jeans (to start with)
- Strength increases on the squat, deadlift, bent-over row, and overhead press.
- Decreased 2,000 meter rowing machine time.
- Be able to do a pull up.  Yes. Just one.  I've never been able to do one.

If we ignore the factors we cannot change: age, gender, pre-existing health conditions, etc.; there are generally four factors we do control in the fat loss process.  In general level of importance they are: food, sleep, exercise, and stress.  The subsequent posts will discuss how I plan to tackle each.

*High Intensity Interval Training