Twelve Weeks

Today I bundled myself up in wind pants, a long sleeve t-shirt, headband and gloves, and headed off into a "pig-easterly" wind (what I call a wind that blows directly out of the northeast, past the swine farm, and right into our apartment complex) for what would be the final run of my spring 2011 twelve week running program. It is a program that has taken me over 132.4 miles since the beginning of the year, running indoors, outdoors, off-road, past swine barns, cattle barns, through downtown - really all over the place. I only missed two days due to travel and I even ran when I had a nasty cold. Hard to believe from a guy that said he would never run again after dogging it through a timed mile that was the final test of KINS 186, a classroom/exercise course to fulfill my physical education credit in college.

Perhaps it has been my use of a chart:


Or perhaps it was having a systematic program with which to tackle my runs each week. Maybe I've just decided it's time to start getting serious about exercising. Either way I've amazed even myself with my persistence so far this year. For my reward I will take it easy this week - perhaps one or two light runs, some walking and biking. Next I will plunge ahead into a new program - maybe a half marathon training program or something - who knows? What I can tell you is that I've learned a lot about my physical ability as a runner and I'm feeling much more physically fit than I did around Christmastime.

Onward and upward!

Or Up and Atom!
(In the words of Radioactive Man)

Orange Tote Bags

I always know when the Yellowhopper bus is going to be standing room only when I'm on my way home from the Krannert Center on a Friday night. I can tell before I even get to the bus. The telltale sign: orange tote bags typically accompanied by a parent (carry the bag) and a surly teenage boy or girl following behind.

Each college on campus has open house days for prospective students. Today's open house was the College of Engineering and the Beckman Institute. They host an open house every year, usually a week or so after "Unofficial St. Patrick's Day," which features an expo of exhibits open to the public that includes, "everything from a humanoid to driving and flight simulators, to shooting a basketball while wearing 'drunk' goggles!" It is, as I'm told, a blast.

In years past, sometimes "Unofficial" (as it is lovingly known) would fall on the same day as this open house. Visitors and prospective students were then treated to packs of drunk undergrads roaming the town and they often spent their time sidestepping puddles of green vomit and passed out kids. Fortunately a deal was struck with the bar owners so that this no longer happened and now the surly children and their parents with tote bags are free to roam campus with no fear of encountering an unsavory situation.

Thoughts of Spring - Lent

It's that time of year again - traditionally the time of year when I make a resolution to give something up for the next six weeks only to either (a) consciously make a decision to break said resolution or (b) forget that I've given up chocolate and tuck into handful of M&Ms. Hopefully this year will be different.

This year we kicked off Lent at our full to overflowing Newman Center on campus. We tried going to the 5 PM mass, but there were no seats so we went back for the 9 PM instead. This time we were early and managed to get a seat, but there were dozens of other people standing in the back. I wondered why a 9 PM mass would be so packed and then I realized this isn't a "real people" mass, it's a "college people" mass. 9 PM is when most of the undergrads start waking up and who knows, maybe some of them were on their way out to the bars.

Newman in Urbana is a far cry from Newman in Eau Claire. For starters, it's a large church not a small, cozy intimate space. There's even a stained glass window featuring Jesus and the American flag - Jesus hearts America! And the main priest is no mere father - he's a Monsignor! Each mass that we've attended the Monsignor, in his sports announcer voice, delivers his homily from the pulpit, his voice cascading in waves throughout the chapel. "Batter up." (When we first visited the church last summer Kaia turned to me and said, "why is he yelling at us?") So it was in this environment that we received our ashes this year. "Remember you are dust and unto dust you shall return." Sigh.

Each year I struggle with what to give up for Lent. It's always a difficult decision but this year I've decided to make the following adjustments to my life:

1. No reading news on the internet (especially online opinion forums such as Salon, Huffington Post, etc). This has been mostly due to my obsessive checking of the news revolving around recent events Wisconsin. It was getting in the way of my work and causing me much anxiety.

2. Facebook once per day. No need to explain this.

3. Only one hour of TV per night. This is due in large part to our recent HBO's The Wire binge where we watched the last four episodes of the show in one sitting. And then watched all of the special features. It was something like five hours of television in one sitting.

Hopefully I will be able to keep all of this up and use the time I save to study more music and reflect on the mystery of creation and attempt to tap into a more spiritual existence. Or I will jettison the entire thing by week two and obsessively watch the entire series of Tombstone, while reading internet blogs and Facebook chatting. Only time will tell.

Making Bread

Ever since entering graduate school I have attempted to find new hobbies to break the routine of study and classes. I typically feel as though I am letting myself down and somehow failing as a student by not working on something every waking hour. There's always an article to read for a class, a score to study, or homework to do. In addition, our status as students makes it difficult to have hobbies that cost money. To quote Michael Scott from The Office: "good luck doing that on your zero dollars per month salary." As a result, the hobbies that I've taken up are relatively cheap.

Examples: running (free) and making bread (inexpensive).

Last weekend I made a couple of loaves of bread and Kaia documented the process. I will share the recipe (given to us by our friend Nicole - thanks!) and some tips for making your own tasty bread.

Mix 3 cups warm water, 4 1/2 tsp yeast, and 1/3 cup honey in a large bowl. Add 3 cups white flour and 2 cups whole wheat flour, and stir to combine. Let sit for 30-60 minutes or until the dough rises above the rim of the bowl:

Mix in 3 tablespoons melted butter, 1/3 cup honey, and 1 tablespoon of salt. Then add 1 cup white flour and 1 cup wheat flour.

Dump out onto a lightly floured surface:

Making sure to spill some on the floor for good measure:


Knead dough and add a bit more flour as you go along:


Then place the dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover, and let rise for another hour.

Divide the dough into three normal sized portions (or if you are me, two gigantic portions), roll out, shape into a loaves and then place in greased loaf pans. Let rise for another 40 minutes.


Place loaves onto the middle rack of a 375 degree oven and bake for 30 minutes. Remove immediately and place on wire racks to cool. Your bread will look something like this:

But maybe less deformed. I like to call this Lumpy Honey Wheat Loaf. It still tastes good and during a good week we can fit the slices into Ziploc baggies to bring for lunch. What's a bad week you ask? We have to cut our sandwiches in half and place them in two separate bags because the bread is so big. That's right, this bread is off the hook.