Innovative uses for a coffee stirring stick
Every year my honor society has an induction ceremony where we welcome our new members. Myself and a couple of other students form the local chapter’s executive. Many of us have been organizing the ceremony for a couple of years so we delegate the various tasks among each of us. I send out reminder emails to our 400 new members and handle all the email correspondence. While in Phoenix, AZ, the president and I drafted the speeches and constructed the programme. One of the more span class=”blsp-spelling-corrected” id=”SPELLING_ERROR_0″humorous/span part happened in a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monument_Valley”Monument Valley/a. We were midway through a three mile hike around a 1000 feet butte and waiting for the morning sun to catch it and admiring the stillness and silence when when my iPhone chirps away. The message was along the line, do I remember how many cakes we bought last year.br /br /Every year there are new challenges and some we can’t seem to solve. The most pressing deals with knives to cut the celebration cake. We always end up by forgetting them in the mad rush. This year was no exception. In the past we have used cardboard, plastic plates and forks. They all work but not very well. While the speeches were going on we had to quickly find a way of cutting and serving cake to 400 people. The solution this year was to slice the cake using wooden coffee stirrers and to us two forks to lift the cake onto the plates. The solution worked and at times it was comical to watch. The students and parents didn’t seem to notice as they were eager for free food and coffee.
Phoenix half-marathon — part 2
The Racebr /br /I awoke at 5:15 am and started the processing of fueling for the race. It would take the form of four bowels of a href=”http://www.kelloggs.ca/cgi-bin/klog-canada/product.pl?product=458″Kellog’s Vector cereal /aand hot tea. At 6:00, I headed down to the lobby and was able to catch the race shuttle a couple of minute early. The start area was a haven of activity as there were 30,000 runners milling around the downtown core of Phoenix. I had brought along the daily babble puzzle and worked on it while watching the sunrise. As it was getting brighter, I checked out the senate building and took some pictures of nearby statues 1 2 . At 7:30 am the marathon race started which much fanfare. Of note, the organizers had set aside 27 corrals. I started munching on a Clif bar. At a little before 8:00, I stripped off my layers of warm clothing and dropped then off at the UPS depot and headed for the start line. It was a cool 4C/39F. After the playing of the national anthem we were off on our 13.1 mile journey. My first two miles were done at a brisk pace of 6.55 and 6.59. At around mile 8, I started to feel my energy level drop, so I pushed back a Clif Gel with 25 mg of caffeine. This would stabilize me for a little while but I was running faster than my energy intake could keep up. At mile 9, they had a volunteers handing out Powergel so I grabbed two. These would act as a lifeline for the final three miles. I had run the first half of the race too quickly and was starting to pay the price. I could still rely on one advantage and that was, I knew the race course and could run towards familiar landmarks. At the start of the Tempe Town Bridge with 1.5 miles to go, I opened up and sprinted for as long as I could and held on until just over the finish line. I would finish in position 456 while 21,000 participants were still out on the course. The finish was special as I was a href=”http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/Phoenix_Jan2008/photo#5158141400289224354″greeted with flowers and two beauty women/a. After cooling down for a while and sucking on multiple popsicles it was time to see how JB’s race was coming along. With ten minutes to spare, I was able to watch him cross his finish line. a href=”http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/Phoenix_Jan2008/photo#5158141288620074642″JB/a was excited by his finish as he ran a 3:28 marathon which was two minutes faster than he had expected to finish.br /br /A little while later I headed over to buy some tea. It is special tea and much sought after. I bought multiple boxes of Revolution tea and walked ever so slowly back to the hotel. We closed out the day with a celebratory dinner at the a href=”http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/Phoenix_Jan2008/photo#5158141421764060850″Cheesecake factory/a.br /1:36 — 13.1 miles/21 kmbr /Mile splits time heart rate datebr /1 6.55 162/131br /2 6.59 13.54 164/165br /3 7.21 21.16 168/166br /4 7.07 28.23 168/167br /5 7.15 35.38 168/169br /6 7.11 42.49 168/170br /7 7.23 50.13br /8 7.23 57.6 168/169br /9 7.24 1.05.01 171/173br /10/11 15.40 1.20.42br /12 7.20 1.28.20 173/175br /13 7.23 1.35.25 173/178br /13.1 1.36br /br /The Road Tripbr /br /On Monday morning, I was up early as we had to pick up the rental car at 7:30 am. JB’s dad took us out for breakfast before we started our trek north. Our first stop was a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montezuma%27s_Castle”Montezuma Castle /ain a href=”http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/Phoenix_Jan2008/photo#5158142370951833458″Camp Verde/a. It was an impressive sight. The Hopi Indians had built their homes into the side of a rock face 15,000 years ago. During the summer heat the thick wall would keep the folks living their cool. We continued our journey north and stopped in at a href=”http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/Phoenix_Jan2008/photo#5158142388131702658″Bell Rock /a(N34 47.506 W111 45.697) in Sedona. All around us the soil and rocks were red. It was like driving through a Martian landscape. Throughout the drive I let my mind wander as I envisioned John Wayne riding ahead through the desert and through the large rock outcrops. Continuing north we stopped at the a href=”http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/Phoenix_Jan2008/photo#5158142396721637266″Chapel in the Rocks /a(N34 49.920 W111 45.988) which is a church built in the 1950s in a rock ledge which is an architectural marvel. The next part came as a surprise, snow and cold. Flagstaff had received about a foot of snow in early December and it was still on the ground. We stopped in at a href=”http://home.nau.edu/”North Arizona University /aand took a tour of the campus. The university’s crest contains a snowflake and the mascot is a lumberjack. Flagstaff is also the site of the US Olympic training center as it has an elevation of 7,000 feet. We threw snowballs and built a snowman. Our journey would take us next in an easterly direction to the a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barringer_Crater”Meteor Crater /a(N35 01.934 W111 01.298) which is the largest well preserved crater. It was huge and could hold 20 football fields at the bottom. We arrived a little late and missed the hiking tour around the perimeter. A couple of facts about the crater: As the sun was setting we started our journey in a south-westerly direction back to Phoenix. We closed off the day with a steak dinner.br /br /Tuesday’s adventure would involve a fair amount of driving as we headed south just as the sun was rising. We headed in a southerly direction and were within earshot of the Mexican border. Our destination was a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tombstone%2C_Arizona”Tombstone, AZ /a(N31 42.837 W110 04.018). The drive south started out flat as a pancake and ripe for speed traps. Tombstone is an old Wild West cowboy town frozen in time. There was the famous OK Corral, the general store, the post office and the saloon. The saloon was just as one would expect a great bar, cheap drinks and scantly clad women. JB opted for a whisky on the rocks and I a local Merlot. Drinking the booze on an empty stomach gave me a bit of a buzz. We visited the world’s largest rose bush and the attached museum. We stopped in at the OK Corral to watch an enactment of the famous Wyatt Earp shootout which was fun. The Tombstone Epitaph, the local paper, has a museum so we checked out the offerings. As the sun was setting we visited the Tombstone graveyard which is home where the remains of 50 of the famous western heroes. Back then justice was severe as the ceremony was riddled which folks that experienced really gruesome deaths. On our journey north we stopped in at the University of Arizona campus and eyed some weird signs. They have a pedestrian crossing for both deaf and blind folks next to a performing arts center. Visiting the a href=”http://www.arizona.edu/”UoA/a would mean that I had visited all three of the universities in the state of Arizona during my stay. Early Wednesday morning I caught early flight back to Ottawa.br /br /a href=”http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/Phoenix_Jan2008″http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/Phoenix_Jan2008/a
Almost race day
I’m in Tempe, AZ as I write this entry. The temperature outside is a sunny, 70F. Today, I have to head to the race expo to pickup my race number as the race starts at 0730 on Sunday morning. I’ll stop in at the local a href=”http://www.rei.com/”REI /astore to try on a new winter jacket which went on special over the Christmas holiday. Yah, it does sound strange that have I’m in Arizona checking out winter jackets. Tonight, I’ll have my pasta/carbo-loading meal as the half-marathon will draw down my energy reserve tomorrow. I’m excited by the race and can wait to see how fast I can run the course.
Wet in Phladelphia
This weekend I’ll be in Phoenix, AZ running in my second PF Chang half-marathon. Last year, I set a personal best for the half-marathon distance (13.1 miles) in a time of 1:33. On Sunday, I hope to try run a faster time. As I type this blog I am sitting at the Philadelphia airport waiting for my flight to leave. I was up at 5:00 am to catch a 6:30 am flight and arrived a little later than I had expected. I had to rush through security only to find out that the airplane was having light bulb problems. The flight was delayed and delayed for about five hours scuttling my chances of arriving in Phoenix during the early afternoon. Once I boarded the flight at 11:00 they explained the problem. A light bulb for one of the main sensors on the plane had burn out. They would have to remove a couple of panels to replace it. I’m glad that they spotted the problem while we were still on the ground.
