Category: Uncategorized

I have been filling in the Beats Per Minute (BPM) field in the ID3 tags of my music in iTunes 4 and have an hours worth of good 109 BPM tunes in sequence on my iPod which makes for a nice soundtrack for a vigorous walk over lunch. To clarify, I had external motivation for this.

In December, 2001, the U. S. Surgeon General, Dr. David Satcher issued “The Surgeon General’s Call to Action to Prevent and Decrease Overweight and Obesity.” In this report, Dr. Satcher joined former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop by highlighting the health risks and costs of overweight and obesity and issued a call to Americans to take action. Dr. Koop founded Shape Up America! in 1994 because of his concern about the increasing prevalence of obesity in America. The mission of Shape Up America! is to provide you with solid (scientific) information on weight management. Over the years, the Surgeon General has warned Americans about such things as the hazards of cigarette smoking or a high cholesterol level in your blood. In 1996, the Surgeon General issued an important report on physical activity and warned us that regardless of our age, we are just not active enough.

In short, there are now some studies suggesting that walking 10,000 steps a day is the right ball park to be in.

If I walk in time with my music at 109 BPM for one hour every day, I only get 6,540 steps in. My job is pretty sedentary, so I get little exercise beyond my daily walks. So, if I want to get my 10,000 steps, I have two options:

1. Either, I extend my walks to 1 hour and 32 minutes,
2. Or, I speed up my walks to 167 beats per minute.

I don’t know about you, but I consider 167 BPM to be jogging.

The <a title="css Zen Garden: The Beauty in CSS Design" href="http://csszengarden.com/">CSS Zen Garden</a> is a technical <a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=tour%20de%20force" title="Dictionary.com/tour de force"><em>tour de force</em></a> regarding what can be done in site design using Web standards. All of the pages use the same HTML source and affect their changes solely through the selection of a different style sheet.

There is clearly a need for CSS to be taken seriously by graphic artists. The Zen Garden aims to excite, inspire, and encourage participation. To begin, view some of the existing designs in the list. Clicking on any one will load the style sheet into this very page. The code remains the same, the only thing that has changed is the external .css file. Yes, really.

CSS allows complete and total control over the style of a hypertext document. The only way this can be illustrated in a way that gets people excited is by demonstrating what it can truly be, once the reins are placed in the hands of those able to create beauty from structure. To date, most examples of neat tricks and hacks have been demonstrated by structurists and coders. Designers have yet to make their mark. This needs to change.

Bush Diagnosed With Attention-To-Deficit Disorder

WASHINGTON, DC—Pointing to massive war-time tax cuts, physicians from the Congressional Budget Office diagnosed President Bush with attention-to-deficit disorder Tuesday. “The president exhibits all the symptoms of ATDD: impulsiveness, restlessness, inability to focus on mounting U.S. debt likely to reach $400 billion by the year’s end,” Dr. Terrence Spellman said. “Failing to address his affliction could lead to serious long-term fiscal health problems for future generations of Americans.” To treat the president’s ATDD, Spellman prescribed Ritalin and an introductory course in high-school economics.

<a href="http://www.wired.com/" title="Wired News">Wired</a> has a great <a href="http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/mit.html" title="Wired 11.09: MIT Everyware">article</a> about the <a href="http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html" title="MIT OpenCourseWare | OCW Home">MIT OpenCourseWare project</a>.

Breakfast was cereal with a sliced banana again this morning.



<ins datetime="2003-10-08T14:47:00-05:00">I went for a walk over to the Telcommunications Building again today and had a granola bar on the way.</ins>



<ins datetime="2003-10-08T20:08:00-05:00">Gretchen made chicken pie tonight. I had two pieces and two beers (oink, oink).</ins>

Breakfast was cereal with a sliced banana this morning.



<ins datetime="2003-10-07T11:27:00-05:00">This morning I went for a walk over to the Telcommunications Building &mdash; about two miles round trip &mdash; and then had a granola bar &mdash; OK, actually I had two.</ins>



<ins datetime="2003-10-07T12:56:00-05:00">I figured that maybe I was going to be having these granola bars as a snack from now on &mdash; better than a bag of potato chips &mdash; so I went out to Walmart and bought a box. The box containing six bars cost $1.88 &mdash; about $0.31 a piece &mdash; compare that to $0.80 a piece when bought from the vending machine. Oh, I also refilled my <a href="http://www.centrum.com/" title="Centrum®: Wyeth Consumer Healthcare">Centrum</a>, which I take one of every day.</ins>



<ins datetime="2003-10-08T08:39:00-05:00">Gretchen made <a href="http://www.marthastewart.com/page.jhtml?type=content&amp;id=recipe2784" title="Eleanora’s Eggplant Parmigiana">Eleanora&rsquo;s Eggplant Parmigiana</a> for dinner. I had seconds and accompanied it with two beers (oink).</ins>

The <a href="http://www.cas.psu.edu/" title="PSU College of Ag Sciences">Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences</a> <a href="http://www.extension.psu.edu/" title="Cooperative Extension and Outreach">Agricultural Research and Cooperative Extension</a> has an interesting little <a href="http://pubs.cas.psu.edu/" title="Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences Publications">publication</a> in their <a href="http://agalternatives.aers.psu.edu/" title="Agricultural Alternatives - Penn State Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology">Agricultural Alternatives</a> line about <a href="http://pubs.cas.psu.edu/FreePubs/pdfs/ua313.pdf" title="Asparagus Production">Asparagus Production</a> [PDF]. Here is a list of the ones I thought looked interesting (there are many more).

• Fruit and Vegetable Marketing for Small-Scale and Part-Time Growers
• Highbush Blueberry Production
• Boarding Horses
• Sweet Corn Production
• Broccoli Production
• Irrigation for Fruit and Vegetable Production
• Red Raspberry Production
• Financing Small-Scale and Part-Time Farms
• Cantaloupe Production
• Bell Pepper Production
• Snap Bean Production
• Strawberry Production
• Tomato Production
• Pumpkin Production
• Beekeeping
• Onion Production
• Asparagus Production
• Cucumber Production
• Small-Scale Egg Production
• Potato Production
• Drip Irrigation for Vegetable Production

Cereal again this morning.



<ins datetime="2003-10-06T13:37:00-05:00">Lunch was a bag of chips and a four mile walk.</ins>



<ins datetime="2003-10-06T15:59:00-05:00">This afternoon I broke down and had a <a href="http://www.naturevalley.com/Products2.htm" title="Welcome to Nature Valley: Products">Nature Valley Oats &rsquo;N Honey Crunchy Granola Bar</a> (180 Calories).</ins>



<ins datetime="2003-10-06T19:31:00-05:00">Salad and a beer for dinner. Gretchen found some low fat blue cheese dressing. I could not tell the difference.</ins>

The freezer is almost full with bounty from our garden, but we still have a large bowl of tomatoes left from what we picked before the frost this past week so we are trying to use them up. Tonight we are making up a batch of chili freeze.

Breakfast this morning was an omelet made with left over peppers, onions, and salsa from the fajitas last night, a slice of toast with butter, and a glass of orange juice.



<ins datetime="2003-10-05T14:02:00-05:00">Lunch again consisted of a hand full of peanuts and a beer.</ins>



<ins datetime="2003-10-05T19:41:00-05:00">Dinner was two fajitas made from last night&rsquo;s left-overs, enough tortilla chips to finish off the salsa, and two beers.</ins>