L.A. County Fair Commercial come to life

There is a L.A. County Fair commercial where a mother and her daughters are shopping in a boutique and discussing whether wool comes from a boy cow or a girl cow (see it here.) Ridiculous, isn't it?

But then I heard about the following conversation between a friend's co-workers:
Girl 1: Veal is a bird right?
Girl 2: Veal isn't a bird, it's a type of fish.

And then I had the following conversation at the farmers market last weekend:
Husband: Look at that rhubarb
Wife: Wow is that a vegetable?
Me to couple: This is swiss chard
Husband: Yup it's rhubarb (pointing to the yellow swiss chard next to the red swiss chard).

Granted, mistaking swiss chard for rhubarb is less of a misnomer than believing wool comes from a cow. But the L.A. County Fair tagline is so true. If there was ever a place that needed a county fair, it's L.A.

Dinner with Dennis

When the movie 'The Right Stuff' came out years ago, I just loved it. And I had a mini-crush on Dennis Quaid. That crooked smile was just quirky enough to make my insides feel like jelly.

Tonight I saw Dennis Quaid and (I believe) his wife at the restaurant where my friend was having her birthday dinner. He was sitting at the bar next to us while we were waiting for our table, and I would never have recognized him if somebody hadn't said something. He is much thinner and taller than he looks in the movies. A lot of heads turned when he left the bar and walked towards his table. I tried to look without looking and he noticed my friends and I trying to glance towards him non-chalantly. I even made eye contact a couple of times, but I felt sort of shy and he seemed nervous about being noticed.

Wouldn't you know it, his dinner table was right next to ours! So I got a great view of him while eating, and we made eye contact a few times again. Yes, I was too shy to even smile. Instead I had a great dinner with really good conversation. And Dennis Quaid in the background just added to the fun.

Celebrity at the grocery store

I just saw Eric McCormack at the grocery store. He's the guy who played Will from 'Will and Grace'. I wouldn't have noticed him except his son (around 6 years old) was touching all the loaves of bread as I was picking out a loaf. He came over and grabbed his son telling him to 'come over here' in that parent's 'stop doing that' sort of voice. What surprised me is how normal he looks. He always seems like this spiffy shiny person on t.v. and in the magazines. At the grocery store, he wore a t-shirt and jeans and looked non-glamorous. He didn't stand out from the other dads around him at all. I'm not even sure if anybody else noticed him besides me.

A couple of aisles over, there was this guy who wore a police-like uniform only they guy looked like he belonged on the show 'Reno 911'. He was too short and wimpy to be a real police officer or security guard (in a fight I probably could have taken him). He wore dark sunglasses and was looking around like he was somebody that we should be noticing. He stood out because he was just weird. And if he is somebody famous, I have no clue who he is. If somebody told me he was at the grocery store to film an episode of Punk'd or Hidden Camera, I wouldn't be surprised.

All in all, it was a fun Sunday afternoon trip to the grocery store!

Pasadena Marathon Inaugural Redux

Last weekend I ran the Second First Pasadena Marathon.

Some of you may know or remember that I had been training for the Inaugural Pasadena Marathon to be run last November. It was to be my 2008 marathon but that plan ended up in smoke (literally-- they canceled the race due to wildfires). I was dead-set on running a Pasadena Marathon so I was one of the first to sign-up when they rescheduled the Second First Pasadena Marathon (a.k.a. Inaugural Redux) for last weekend.

In the week leading up to the marathon, the forecasters had predicted temperatures in the 60's and possible scattered showers on marathon day. By the Thursday before the race the forecast was for a 70% chance of showers with potential thunderstorms.

It started to sprinkle while we were lining up at the race start. It was light misty rain that is typical of Seattle-- the kind that actually makes for fun running. But as the race start time got closer and closer, the rain started to get heavier and heavier, and I was getting wetter and wetter. At 6:30a.m. the race officially started and the skies opened up and dumped water everywhere.

After about 20 minutes, the rain stopped and we all started to enjoy the race. People started to discard their improvised raingear (garbage bags and plastic ponchos) as we ran past Cal Tech. I picked up one of these plastic ponchos off the sidewalk because it was still early. I'm sooooo glad that I did this. At about mile 5 the sky started to dump water again and the gutters in the streets started to flood. The plastic poncho didn't really keep me dry, it just made it harder to get completely soaked. I thank whomever threw it away and hope they didn't regret throwing it away too much.

It continued to rain heavily off-and-on until about mile 15. I saw people huddling under the bathroom structures at the Rose Bowl just to get a break from the rain and wind. About that time (mile 14), a Japanese man looked me in the eyes and said, "This is miserable." The funny thing is, I didn't feel miserable until he said that. Then I thought, "yeah, this IS miserable and I am only half-way done." I was cold, wet, hungry, and tired. Then a few miles later, as I pushed myself uphill, my left calf started to cramp. So I walked. Every now and then I would try to run, but then I would cramp even worse somewhere else. So I walked some more. By the end, I started to cramp in my upper back so I could barely move my arms without cramping. But I kept walking. And I finally walked across the finish line and received my medal.



In retrospect, it wasn't that bad of a race. I now know what it is like to run a marathon in the rain and will be better prepared next time. Plus the scenery is gorgeous and the non-ideal conditions created a sense of unity of spirit based on common suffering.

Since this was Pasadena's first marathon, I expect the race organizers will work out some of the kinks by next year. It was suggested that I write the following section in case somebody involved with the marathon wants to know things that should be improved. It would be nice if in next years race they would do the following: 1)Tell the police officers NOT to stop the runners to let traffic through. Nothing makes runners more angry than messing with their race times because they have to stop for traffic during a race. 2) Tell the volunteers there IS a difference between water and sports drink. It is not nice to be told they are being given water only to be given icky tasting sports drink by a surly teenager. 3)Get more portable restrooms and put them throughout the course! Luckily there are a lot of bushes around the Rose Bowl, but come on! I had to wait until the Rose Bowl for a bush because there weren't enough restrooms. And I'm a girl! 4) Tell the volunteers NOT to make disparaging remarks about how bad the runners look or how slow they are. I heard several comments about this throughout the course. And I easily made the time cut-off. I can't imagine what it was like for the people behind me. 5) Make sure all the bike riders are past the startline before you start the runners. Really. It's just common sense.

All in all, I'm glad that I did the race. But I'm not sure they will get a lot of repeat business. I heard a lot of complaints during and after the race. It is going to take a couple of months and a little bit of marathon amnesia before a lot of people sign up for this race again.

Celebrity ghosts?

Last weekend I attended a dinner party with some people who had worked the front desk at several celebrity hotels in NY and LA in the late '80s/ early '90s. The conversation got really interesting when they described their experiences at the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles.

Chateau Marmont was and is a favorite place for celebrities to stay while in Los Angeles. It sounded like the people working there almost had a bed-and-breakfast relationship with the guests in the early 90's-- the guests knew the service people by name, they had conversations over lunch, and the service people helped the guests like they were family.

There were LOTS of stories of drug abuse, wild behavior, celebrity secrets, and who's nice/who's a jerk. Most of them are things that probably shouldn't be written about by me in this blog because they aren't my secrets or stories to tell. However, there were a couple of stories that were fascinating and (I'm pretty sure) won't get me sued for slander-- they are the ghost stories at the Chateau Marmont.

Several people have died in the hotel (including John Belushi), and several of the rooms are reportedly haunted.

One guest (she was a well known celebrity, maybe RuPaul (correction from previously Angela Bassett)?) came down to the desk one morning and asked if the maids cleaned up in the middle of the night. The desk clerk told her that the housekeeping staff hadn't shown up for the day yet. She then said that she had come back late the previous evening and taken off her clothes and jewelry and sort of left them as piles on the floor because she was tired. The next morning she woke up and found them neatly folded and placed on the bureau. She couldn't explain it. The desk clerk's explanation was that she had a very 'neat' ghost :)

Another story involved a man who was researching a book on The Doors. He happened to stay in the suite that the group used to stay in back in the 60's. He was awoken in the middle of the night by what sounded like loud partying so he went to the window to see if there was a party in the garden below. When he got up, he realized the sound wasn't coming from outside, but from inside the room around him. He checked out of the hotel in the middle of the night.

Another woman had come down to the desk in the middle of the night and reported that she had been sleeping when she heard the window slide open and an intruder walk over to the bed where she was sleeping. Thinking the intruder might potentially harm her, she laid still in the bed. She then felt the intruder sit on the bed and lay down next to her. She lay there for a while waiting for something to happen, but nothing happened. She then turned in the bed to see her intruder and when she turned she saw nothing. And then she noticed that there were bars on the window to prevent someone from breaking in from outside and that the window had indeed been opened.

The most haunted room? 79. We were told not to stay in room 79 because it is the most haunted room. Even the hotel staff don't like to go in there. Apparently somebody died in that room? And several hotel guests have reported hearing knocks on the door, and seeing lines of ghosts pushing on the door trying to get into the the room. Furniture in that room gets moved into odd positions. One woman reported a head floating outside of that window. And even a straight-laced accountant reported hearing things in that room.

From the skeptics point of view, there was a lot of drug use in the hotel and some of these ghost sightings could easily be explained as hallucinations, or other brain processing anomalies in the middle of the night.

But there were so many reports of the same things from a wide variety of people that it makes the ghost stories seem very real. And sort of fun. Just as long as I'm not the one experiencing them.

And now for a brief commercial message...

My sister gave me the following item. It was a promo freebee from work:







It's a can of Spam promoting 'Spam-a-lot', the theatrical musical version of Monty Python's The Holy Grail. I guess it is a collectors item. And I don't really like Spam that much. Any ideas what to do with it? E-bay or frying pan?

Running in Southern California

It is really really cold in most of the country, and I definitely feel lucky to be in Southern California for the winter! Even when it is 'cold and rainy', we can still go outside and enjoy being outdoors because it is almost never really that cold or that rainy (in comparison to other parts of the USA). Wintertime here is ideal running weather.

Last Sunday I ran the Carlsbad Half Marathon and besides being partially sunny and in the 60's, the race course was one of those beautiful Southern California Coastline runs. It reminded me of the Palos Verdes Half Marathon. They are both out-and-back courses that wind through a few neighborhoods, but mainly run along the Southern California Coastline.

Here is a little description of these race courses (for those of you interested):

The Carlsbad Half started at the Westfield Mall, wound west towards the Pacific Ocean and through cute little Downtown Carlsbad, ran south for a few miles along Highway 1 past the power stations, then turned around and came back the same route back towards the mall. They advertise it as a flat and fast course. It is definitely flatter than some races out there, but it does have a few hills. Being by the ocean, I got the chance to distract myself by looking at the boats on the water and the pelicans flying (very closely) overhead. Other nice distractions were the multimillion dollar oceanfront houses in Carlsbad that I (and almost everybody else) oogled and fantasized about living in.

The Palos Verdes Half Marathon, which I ran last Spring, has even more multimillion dollar oceanfront houses and big hills. It started at a park that overlooks the Pacific, winds up and down a road that follows the coast, runs through several neighborhoods and oceanside golf courses, then turns around and comes back to the park. The great thing about this race is that the course had some spectacular California Coastal views. And since the race is sponsored by the local Kiwanis Club, it is relatively small and has a very hometown race feel-- they served watermelon to the runners post-race.

I have to say, honestly, that I am enjoying these races a lot more describing them after-the-fact than while I was running them.

The heat at the Palos Verdes race was scorching, there was very little ground cover, and the race organizers ran out of water. People were giving runners water from their garden hoses, and I'm not sure if she was a volunteer or a good samaritan neighbor, but one woman went to the local grocery store and was handing out full bottles of water because the race ran out.

In the Carlsbad race I just wasn't feeling it and ended up with bad cramps at the end. I tried to control my pace in the beginning, but every time I checked I was going too fast in the first half. I paid for it in the second half of the race. I slowed down, but was running fine, until after the mile 12 sign when I started to cramp in my calves and hamstrings. I walked the rest of the way and must have looked pretty bad because people were trying to direct me towards the marathon finish corral instead of the half-marathon corral. Yup, I ran it slow enough that there were marathon runners finishing at the same time as I was finishing the half marathon. To my credit, the marathon started 90 minutes earlier than the half marathon-- but still, it was sort of disheartening.

Would I recommend these races to other people? Definitely! Would I run them again myself? Considering how I felt at the end of these races we'll have to wait and see on that.

Insomnia

Staying true to being an insomniac, it is 2:45 a.m. and I can't sleep. I've been wide awake for about an hour now and am just waiting to fall asleep. If the past is any indicator, I'll probably fall asleep around 6 a.m. and have to wake up around 7 a.m. to get ready for work.

I had a stretch of time in November, when I took a break from running, when I felt like I could get a gold medal in sleeping. It felt good and I had lots of energy too!

I'm ramping up my mileage to prepare for the new inaugural Pasadena Marathon in March, and my insomnia is ramping up with it. I know this is a sign of overtraining. But I told myself that I would do this one marathon this year and take a break from marathons for a while.

But I've had this problem with insomnia for a long time and it's not just related to running. I remember asking my parents for a digital clock when I was about 7 years old because I wanted to be able to see what time it was when I woke up in the middle of the night. This was back when most people had bedroom clocks with clock faces, and digital clocks were relatively expensive. I got a digital clock for my birthday that year and discovered that I almost always wake up between 2 and 3 a.m.

I've had a lot of practice at being an insomniac. Imagine what I could have done in that sleepless time if I would have been a more productive insomniac...

Happy New Year!

I celebrated the New Year in the Channel Islands off the California Coast. We spent the night camping on Santa Cruz Island and saw foxes, whales, and dolphins in addition to the beautiful hill and coastal views.

Here is a sampling (mind you that I am not a professional photographer):









And our boat passed through a huge school of hundreds of dolphins (the video is better in high definition if youtube gives you that option):



In high quality video, you can also see a whale near the horizon:



I hope you enjoy the pictures and videos and have a Happy New Year!

The state of television today

The thing about Christmas vacation is that everything is rushed and stressed before Christmas, but relatively boring and anti-climactic afterwards. I normally have just antenna t.v., and I've been taking advantage of my parents' Dish Network t.v. while visiting them.

This is what I've learned from t.v. these few days:

1. Surfers in Southern California have a history of being territorial and have attacked other surfers they consider non-locals. I watched a really bad half-hour documentary to learn this on the Documentary Network.

2. There is a battle brewing in New Zealand over milk containing A1 casein versus A2 casein. A study has showed that A1 casein containing cows milk is linked to diabetes, and there are claims that it is also linked to brain development issues (e.g. autism). A2 containing cows milk apparently does not have these links and is closer to the milk made by humans. The battle is brewing because most milk in Europe, New Zealand and Australia is A1 milk and switching over to A2 would mean changing over to Jersey and Guernsey instead of Holstein milk cows. (The U.S. sells mainly A1 milk also)

3. There are scientists who argue for 'geo-enviromental engineering' machines/devices to reverse climate change. They have tested things like CO2 scrubbers and pumps to move ocean water from one part of the ocean to another. What could have been really interesting t.v. turned out to be more crappy semi-science and what I consider to be a really bad idea. Truthfully, instead of trying to create clouds to reduce the warming effect of the sun, shouldn't we just do stuff that works with nature to prevent the need for artificial clouds?

4. You should not wear skinny jeans unless you are a skinny and tall person yourself.

5. 'House' is one of the few re-runs that I can stand to watch over and over again.

6. Ghosts are people who have died and have not passed on. Spirits are people who have died, passed on, and 'return' to us every now and then. Poltergeists are ghosts that are up to no good. And Angels are 'different' beings and were never humans. Getting rid of ghosts in a house is apparently as easy as lighting a few candles and telling them to go away.

Even with a few hundred t.v. channels, it is a struggle to find anything worthwhile as my list above indicates. I'm satisfied with having antenna t.v. and just watching the specific cable shows that I enjoy online at hulu.com or other online t.v. sites. I might miss some stuff like the documentaries on milk production, but I waste a lot less time watching the other garbage.

Dream versus premonition

A few weeks ago I dreamt that I was sitting on a plane that was stranded in the middle of the Rocky Mountains. It had crashed without falling from the sky, but everybody on the plane was fine. While we were sitting around waiting to be rescued, an avalanche of snow fell on top of the plane. The layer of snow above my head was very small so I was able to dig myself out and dug out several other people on the plane.

The dream was vivid but I didn't take it to be much else than a dream--though I did tell people about it the next day.

Then a week later I read in the news that a plane in Denver had slid off the runway and crashed. There were some injuries, but nobody died.

This wasn't exactly my dream but I was a little wigged-out by the similarities.

Last night I had a dream that there was a big flood.

I never dream of disasters. I dream about not being able to find the classroom where I am supposed to take (or administer) a test. I dream about getting a bad haircut and being naked at the grocery store. I can not remember ever having a plane crash, avalanche, or flood dream except the ones that I've had these past few days.

I must be watching too much news. With the weather patterns, it's not too much of a stretch to say that once the snow melts there will be a big flood. Or that the snow is going to cause problems with travel and avalanches.

It's just a weird feeling when a dream becomes sort of real.

Nobel Prize winner versus George Clooney

The weekend before Thanksgiving was the annual retreat for my department at work. The keynote speaker this year was the 2007 Nobel Prize winner in Physiology, Mario Capecchi. Typically famous scientists usually arrive for a talk, give the talk, and then leave. However, Dr. Capecchi was nice enough to stay for the whole weekend! It was an obvious thrill for a lot of people to say that they had talked to, played ping pong with, and bowled with a Nobel Prize winner. He is obviously a great man who has an even more amazing life story.

Dr. Capecchi was born in pre-World War II Italy and when he was very young his mother was taken by the Nazis to Dachau for protesting the Fascists. From the ages of 4 to 9 he lived on the streets of Italy starving. His mother was released after the war and spent a year searching for him. She found him in a childrens hospital/orphanage where all of the children were naked and their daily meal consisted of a cup of coffee and a crust of bread. Apparently his mother gave him his first bath in 6 years when she found him. They then came to the U.S. to live with his uncle (mother's brother) and aunt in Pennsylvania. As Dr. Capecchi described it, he passed through Ellis Island on a Sunday and started school on a Monday. It was the first time in his life that he had been to school and he did not know how to read or write, nor did he know English. It is obvious that his family cared a lot about him and helped him get a proper education. He ended up doing his PhD under James Watson (of double-sided DNA Nobel Prize fame), and eventually took a professor position at the University of Utah where he did his work on homologous recombination in eukaryotes and created gene knock-out mice. This technique basically allows us to make mice with specific genetic mutations (i.e. mouse models) that cause and/or mimic diseases like cancer, obesity, and Parkinson's.

With all of this, Dr. Capecchi is a really nice man. I think a lot of people were intimidated by him the first day of the retreat. I saw him walking around the posters by himself and pretty much sort of isolated because people were afraid to talk to him. But as the weekend progressed, people got over their fears and were excited to get some face time with him. It was sweet.

The retreat ended with a talk given by Jorge Cham, the comic strip artist for PhD Comics. Being more of a grad-school pop-culture talk, his talk was entertaining and not intimidating. It was the cotton candy ending to a meat and potatoes weekend. When I spoke to Jorge during the book signing, he seemed sort of defensive about the fact that he is now a comic strip artist and not a practicing engineer. It makes me wonder how long he is going to keep this up.

The title of this blog is 'Nobel Prize winner versus George Clooney'. The Nobel Prize winner is obvious, but what about George Clooney? Last weekend I was hiking in the hills close to where I live and as we came down from the hill towards the houses, my sister said that George Clooney lives in that area. As we were walking past one house, I heard people playing basketball. The house had a huge court in front that was wrapped in green tennis court netting. My sister and I distinctly heard a man talking while playing basketball. Yup, that man was George Clooney.

If I were hosting a dinner party and had to pick between Mario Capecchi and George Clooney, Mario Capecchi would definitely win the invite... but I guess that it would be okay if George Clooney hung around for drinks afterwards ;)

Today at the farmers market...

One plus of not running the marathon this morning is that I was able to go to the local farmers market. While there, I saw William H. Macy and Felicity Huffman (Desperate Housewives) shopping for produce. They looked scraggly like they just got up out of bed and did not change their clothes before deciding to go to the market. They were definitely not 'shiny' like you see in the movies or on t.v. In fact, most of the other people at the farmers market looked a lot more put together and awake than they did (at 10a.m.). They also looked very annoyed which gave me the impression that they were not enjoying themselves.

So I didn't run the marathon today because of the wildfires. But I did get to see some celebrities. I guess it's an L.A. trade-off.

Mother Nature wins again

It is 5 a.m. and I can't sleep.

At 3:42 a.m. someone's car alarm went off on the street. I checked my e-mail and there was still no updates. Since I couldn't sleep, I went downstairs and got ready for the marathon as if there were a chance that it would still proceed as planned. I made my oatmeal and drank my tea. Then at 4:05 a.m. I got the e-mail saying that the Pasadena Marathon had been cancelled due to poor air quality from the wildfires surrounding Orange County and Los Angeles. Phone calls were exchanged over the next half hour as I contacted people and people contacted me regarding the cancellation. I tried to go back to sleep again, but I'm an insomniac and now up for the day.

I think the organizers made the right decision. After years of planning, it has to have been a hard decision to pull the plug today. From the beginning, the race organizers have taken the runner into account and this decision reinforces that. I look forward to whatever solution they may have for the cancellation because that have my full confidence and respect. If they want to increase interest and make a lot of people happy they will reschedule the marathon for mid-February when the L.A. Marathon was supposed to take place.

As for me, I have been specifically training for the Pasadena Marathon for half a year now and was looking forward to the marathon today. It was going to be my 'big payoff' before going into a much needed rest and recovery mode. It was also supposed to be a day of spiritual rebirth-- where each step symbolically represented the past that I am leaving behind and the future that I am moving towards. It was something that I did during the L.A. Marathon, and was planning on doing today. Oh well, I guess there will be no endorphin and sugar-depletion induced feel-good high involved in my rebirth today. Bummer.

Card carrying member of the UAW

A few months ago, I described that the UAW petitioned to represent the University of California system post-docs. Well, last week I got an e-mail informing me that it is now in effect. Here is an excerpt from that e-mail:

For your information, the Office of the President Labor Relations had notified us that the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) has confirmed majority support for Pro-UAW in the bargaining unit determination to represent Postdoctoral Scholars and Postgraduate Researchers at all UC campuses. Approximately 1,000 individuals at UCLA are included in this new systemwide bargaining unit, with a total estimated at approximately 6,400 members.

We understand that the University will send a letter of recognition to PERB today, November 3rd. At that point, Pro-UAW will have exclusive representation rights, and there may be no changes in working conditions, including wages, unless authorized through the systemwide negotiation process.

The American auto industry is practically on death's door and the UAW decided that unionizing PhD's was the logical next step for survival? I grew up in American Motors Corporation country. I saw the UAW burden that company with strikes and demands to the point where the company pretty much died. And I saw the aftermath as friends' parents lost jobs, the economy in my hometown crashed (and never fully recovered), and the people and town were forgotten once the UAW no longer needed them. Needless to say, I am now a card carrying member of the UAW, and I'm not proud of it.

Sometimes you're right, sometimes not so right...

It turns out the guy that I saw last weekend could not have been Lance Armstrong since he did a bike race in Texas last weekend (and of course won). BUT, while I working a water station for the Leggers this morning, I saw Aaron Eckhart running in front of one of our pace groups. He eyed some of the water and goodies on the table, and one of the people working the water station offered him water. He turned it all down and as he was running away, the woman who offered him water and I were like, "Hey, that's Harvey Dent from Batman!" Then we all started talking about the movies that he was in and how good he looks in real life.

It was fun and I have additional spotters to confirm my sighting this time!

Is that... running past me?

In an earlier entry I noted that I saw Lisa Ling while running by the ocean earlier this year.

Over the summer, I also saw the actress who plays Dr. Cuddy on House (Lisa Edelstein) running by the beach. I wasn't 100% sure it was her the first time because it was early in the morning, she didn't have make-up on, and her hair was a bit messy-- but I saw her again a few weeks later running along the same path by the beach and am fairly certain it was her.

I *think* my biggest sighting happened this morning. As I was running along the same ocean path where I saw Lisa Ling, a man who looked a lot like Lance Armstrong ran past us. I only saw him for a few seconds because, like a high school algebra problem, he was approaching us at X mph and we were approaching him at Y mph (so we were actually approaching each other at X+Y mph). He was wearing sunglasses so I didn't see his eyes, but he was wearing one of the popular yellow Livestrong wristbands. I nodded to him as we ran past each other, and he looked over at us.

My friend Shannon (who lives in the movie star haven of Brentwood and is sort of blase about this stuff) thought it probably actually was Lance Armstrong. So until I hear otherwise, I am going to assume that yup, my Saturday morning running comrade was indeed Lance Armstrong ;)

Florida Wildlife

I had planned a Florida vacation that included camping and snorkeling and lots of interaction with nature. Unfortunately, Mother Nature intervened and it rained really really hard while I was there. My friend Michelle and I ended up enjoying the local sites around the Florida Keys instead. Most memorable was Fantasy Fest in Key West. We had not heard about it until we showed up in Key West to take the ferry boat to the Dry Tortugas National Park. It is a two week long festival that includes a Mardi Gras style parade, 'costume' contests, lots of liquor, and nudity. Well, not complete nudity. The website for Fantasy Fest says specifically that "Nudity is illegal. Key West city code specifies that body paint does not constitute clothing." So we did see women wearing pasties and men wearing a sock (not on their feet).

The kicker of it all is that we saw these not-completely-nude people walking down the street at noon. And they were definitely not in their 20's or 30's. Many of them looked like they were hippies in the 60's which would make many of them in their 60's or 70's. That's right. We saw 60-year old practically nude men and women walking down Duval Street around lunchtime. Yes, I have pictures. No, I'm not going to post them.

To round out the wildlife sightings, we also saw some alligators, crocodiles, and an iguana in the Everglades; and a dolphin and flying fish in Biscayne National Park. And of course, lots and lots of birds everywhere.

Here are some of my impressions of South Florida:

Little changes make a big difference

I have been doing the sports physical therapist exercises for a week now and I can feel the difference. I also had a gait test and after some corrections to my running form, my 11 mile run yesterday actually felt great!

The rotated pelvis problem that I have isn't noticable in a mirror, but I could definitely see it on the video from my running gait test. For the running gait test, I ran on a treadmill for about 45 minutes (overall) while the physical therapist videotaped me from the back and side. The PT then analyzed every aspect of my movement from hip to toes in video-taped slow motion.

My old running form was more straight legged and lazy, and the rotated hip causes the right leg to be a little longer than the left. As a result, my right hip compensates by tilting up during each step and the rest of my body compensates for the hip by tilting in various directions. My right ankle and foot overpronate (collapse the arch), and my lower back arches to the right more. This all explains why my right foot and ankle and lower back hurt sometimes.

After doing a little search on the web, it seems like a rotated pelvis is more common than I thought. It just isn't diagnosed that often because the symptoms are typically things like back or knee pain-- and when people have back and/or knee pain they tend to think the problem is the back or knee. Also, diagnosing it requires someone willing to spend time to do a full structural exam-- something most MD's don't have the time and/or knowledge to do. It's too bad because from what I've read, a small misalignment in the hips can cause pain pretty much everywhere in the body because everything is off-kilter.

Fixing my messed-up alignment is going to take a couple of months of strengthening and stretching. For the first phase (first month) I was given a set of stretching exercises that takes about 30 minutes to get through, and another set of strengthening exercises with light weights that takes at least 30 minutes to go through. The list is pretty thorough and works everything from my neck and shoulders down to my calves and hamstrings. The exercises aren't strenuous at all, just time consuming.

The one exercise specifically designed to stretch and push my right pelvis back into alignment is a high lunge. Basically, I lunge my right leg against a heavy chair or the wall with my right foot at about mid-thigh height bouncing three times. I am supposed to do this several times a day on my right side only. I have started to feel a little bit of aching in my right hip and I'm assuming this is because I am stretching the hip back into place.

As for my running form, I was told to lift my legs up more in front and in back. It feels like I am doing a combination of high-stepping and butt-kicking, but from the video my form looks much more fluid and efficient this way. I was given gradually increasing time intervals to slowly incorporate the new running form into my runs. I tried it yesterday morning and the new form felt really good compared to my old lazy legged form.

I'm amazed how these small changes could make such a big difference in just one week. I'm so glad that I found the root of my problem now when I'm still relatively young! Now the thought of being a 70 year old marathoner doesn't sound so impossible for me :)

Fast food eating women

I recently saw the following audition notice under the role name "Fast food eating Women":

"I would like a wide range of women who are not in very good shape. I don't want giant obese people, just folks who look like they could stand to lay off the cheeseburgers. Would like looks to range from very normal to charactery/quirky. Also would like women who are good with physical comedy."

I don't want to comment too much on the text because the word selection speaks for itself. This is a Hollywood job ad. They will probably use someone with my body size for this role... even though I run over 20 miles a week, I wear size 6 jeans. I am fat for L.A. but healthy sized by all other measurements. Sad, huh?