Category: Uncategorized

• 10.531 Gallons
• $1.899/Gallon
• $20.00
• 260.1 Miles
• 24.7 Miles/Gallon
• 8¢/Mile
• 13 Days

Last night, Gretchen and I staked the tomatoes and peas and ran the cultivator between the rows to kick up the weeds. Gretchen finished the weeding today. Apparently Verne got a little miffed at the weed situation in the asparagus patch and so he mowed it down and tilled it. Luckily, Gretchen had picked some for us earlier that day. We hope it will come back up.

Sue and Ed went to Way Fruit Farm after work tonight and picked 21 pounds of strawberries. They gave us a quart just to be nice, as well as a bunch of the radishes from their garden.

These are our just-staked tomatoes.

These are our snow peas. The stakes and hardware cloth are new.

The hardware cloth gives the peas something to climb on.

Our leaf lettuce has been providing most of the greens for our garden salads.

Occasionally there is enough of our baby spinach to use, as well.

You may recall that Gretchen hoed up the snap peas. She planted these butter crunch lettuce in their place. They are coming along nicely.

Our romaine lettuce is doing really well, which is good because we love romaine.

After a slow start for some, the potatoes are also all doing really well. From left to right we have a row of Red Pontiac, a row of Yukon Gold, and two rows of Kennebec.

Breakfast was a bowl of cold cereal with banana slices, a glass of orange juice, and a cup of coffee. I weighed 158 pounds.

I had a cup of green tea at the office.

It seemed awfully hot out again today (the high was 88°F) so I took a short three mile walk around campus today. I stopped at Otto’s Cafe and got a Italian sub, a dill pickle spear, and a medium Sierra Mist.

Dinner was a garden salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette, a slice of Colonial bread, and a bottle of Saranac Pale Ale

In honor of the approach of Summer I have chosen a new color scheme.

…AirPort Expess goobers so I can listen to my iTunes over my stereo (Why do I still call it that when it has 5.1 channels?) using AirTunes. Macworld has more on how AirTunes works.

Breakfast was a bowl of pineapple and banana slices and two cups of coffee. I weighed 157 pounds.

At the office, I had a cup of coffee.

I took a circuitous route through campus today, trying to stay out of the sun, and based on my pace and the duration I would guess to be about four miles. Along the way, I stopped at the Penn State Creamery and got a raspberry yogurt and a pint of milk.

Here is my workout for today at the MBNA Fitness Center.

1. 5 minute warm-up on the treadmill at 4.5 mph
2. 8 repetitions at 125 pounds on the Nautilus Nitro Compound Row
3. 9 repetitions at 60 pounds on the Nautilus Nitro Overhead Press
4. 10 repetitions at 75 pounds on the Nautilus Nitro Lateral Raise
5. 9 repetitions at 125 pounds on the Nautilus Nitro Lower Back
6. 12³ repetitions at 80 pounds on the Nautilus Nitro Abdominal
7. 12¹ repetitions at 55 pounds on the Nautilus Nitro Biceps Curl
8. 9 repetitions at 5 on the Hoist Prone Leg Curl
9. 8 repetitions at 95 pounds on the Nautilus Nitro Leg Extension
10. 12¹ repetitions at 240 pounds on the Nautilus Nitro Leg Press
11. 12³ repetitions at 80 pounds on the Nautilus Nitro Super Pullover
12. 12³ repetitions at 120 pounds on the Nautilus Combo Lat Pulldown
13. 8 repetitions at 70 pounds on the Nautilus Nitro Vertical Chest
14. 8 repetitions at 65 pounds on the Nautilus Nitro Incline Press
15. 12³ repetitions at 80 pounds on the Nautilus Nitro Seated Dip
16. 12³ repetitions at 95 pounds on the Nautilus Nitro Adductor
17. 12 repetitions at 185 pounds on the Nautilus Nitro Abductor
18. 12 repetitions at 4 on the Hoist Rear Delt
19. 12³ repetitions at 100 pounds on the Nautilus Nitro Rotary Torso
20. 8 repetitions at 180 on the Hoist Standing Calf
21. 5 minute cool-down on the Schwinn Airdyne

If a pill could significantly lower the risk of heart attack, diabetes, stroke, osteoporosis and breast and colon cancer while reducing weight, cholesterol levels, constipation, depression and impotence and also increase muscle mass, flatten the belly and reshape the thighs even as it reduced the risk of age-related dementia and made you better-looking — and had no negative side effects — there would be panic in the streets. The American economy would tip into chaos. The military would have to be called in to secure supplies of the medication.

Luckily, there is no such pill.

But a large and growing body of credible research demonstrates that taking a good walk most days of the week can deliver all of the health benefits cited above and more (although we admit the “better-looking” part is harder to prove).

Yes, walking. You know: one foot in front of the other, repeat, rinse, repeat…

…[Early] in your walk your adrenal glands begin secreting adrenaline, which gets into your bloodstream and signals your heart to beat faster and causes your blood pressure to go up. The heart then begins to pump more blood away from the chest and into the muscles of the limbs you’re using to get yourself down the street. As a result, blood vessels in the arms and legs begin to expand as they’re fed more nutrients and oxygen by the blood.

As your heart rate climbs, you’re taking more breaths per minute, sometimes increasing your oxygen intake to 10 times the amount you’d be taking in if you were sitting still. As the muscles receive more blood, they begin to use up carbohydrates and sugar starches they’ve stored. Metabolism — the process by which the body breaks down materials and converts them to fuel — speeds up. As a result, so does digestion.

All this activity causes the brain to release endorphins into the bloodstream. Endorphins, which have chemical properties similar to opium, are responsible for blocking pain and ushering in that cozy sense of well-being you feel as soon as your walk ends. Additionally, exercise causes the brain to release an abundance of the neurotransmitter serotonin, which works to elevate mood.

And that’s all during the course of one walk. If you walk regularly, you can expect exponentially more benefits. [Redfearn]

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Redfearn, Suz. “Take a Walk.” The Washington Post. 1 October 2002. <www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A17484-2002Sep28> (7 June 2004).

Breakfast was a bowl of pineapple and banana slices, two slices of toasted whole wheat bread with homemade strawberry jam, and two cups of coffee. I weighed 158 pounds.

At the office, I had a cup of Earl Grey Tea

I made the four mile campus loop over lunch today. Along the way I stopped at Irving’s and had a pizza bagel and an orange dreamsicle, which — despite having what I would have said was a trademarked name — is a delightful cross between a smoothie and a milk shake made from orange juice and vanilla frozen yogurt.

Dinner was sheppard’s pie, a garden salad, a glass of Placido Primavera Sangiovese, and a bottle of Saranac Pale Ale with some vanilla ice cream for dessert.

Breakfast was a bowl of pineapple and banana slices, two slices of toasted Italian bread with homemade strawberry jam, a glass of orange juice, and three cups of coffee. I weighed 158 pounds.

Lunch was a couple of hands full of peanuts and a bottle of Saranac Pale Ale.

Dinner was fajitas. We used an extra steak that we had grilled and frozen a while ago. Gretchen made up some whole wheat tortillas. We fried up some onion and red bell pepper and finished them off with a little of our marinade. Some lettuce, some grated cheddar cheese, and a little of our homemade salsa completed the recipe. We washed them down with two bottles of Saranac Pale Ale. Tasty!