"Ouch!"
"What??"
"I have thorns in my thumb"
"??!!? You picked up a cactus!"
"Yeah...but I thought I was holding it between the thorns....."[Shaking head sadly at spouse's logic]
Courtesy of the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, the "Rule of 72":
"As you toy with whether to spend or save, keep in mind the rule of 72. If you divide 72 by the rate of return you expect to earn, that will tell you how long it takes to double your money.I know that for most of our friends, the idea of saving money and compound interest is pretty easy to understand. I Just figured I'd help spread helpful information such as this to a country whose national savings rate is...negative. Sigh.Think you can earn 7% a year? Divide that into 72, and you will learn that doubling your money takes 10.2 years. The implication: If you saved $1,000, rather than spending it, you would have roughly $2,000 after 10 years, $4,000 after 20 years -- and an impressive $8,000 after 30 years."
After spending the last year and a half running on average 4x a week, I feel that I'd gotten myself into pretty good shape. A sub 1:30 half-marathon showed me I was in a lot better shape than I thought. My newfound speediness notwithstanding, I've always found exercising as a means of meditation. Not so much in your classic zen/yoga mat style but instead my running has always given me the opportunity to put on my shoes, hit the road and empty my brain of all the excess thoughts that come living in today's internet age. People are always amazed when I mention I don't wear the requisite iPod (though it's a necessity when I bike) when I run. Even running for 2 hours I don't find the need for any more external stimuli that what Mother Nature brings to the table.
When life conspires to keep me from running, I find myself getting progressively grumpier until I'm finally able to go out, run and get it all out. Unfortunately life has been unkind the past five weeks physically. I first picked up what can only be described as some industrial strength crud right at the end of last semester. This laid me out for about two weeks and the coughing got so bad that I even threw out some muscles in my back. If this wasn't enough, I then was running up in Forest Park and was running down a flat trail and had my knee just give out. Unfortunately I had about a half hour of sunlight and 4 miles back to the car. As a result, I had to keep running on the knee and by the end I was struggling quite a bit. After a week or two of having it give out at random times and struggling with some basic functions, I elected to go to the doctor. Despite a number of injuries over the years, this was the first time I'd actually had my knees x-rayed and MRI'd. The good news was they were "pristine" structurally. The bad news is that I picked up a cartlidge tear in a spot in the near where it's very difficult to fix. The initial diagnosis is physical therapy though the first available appointment is over a month from now (and how is this any different than the socialized health care some Americans like to savage?). The best surgical option is microfracture surgery and with images of Greg Oden dancing in my head, I elected to pass. It's a weird injury though; supposedly I can try to run on it but it's not supposed to heal on its own. I'll have to test it out and hope that I get my meditation back.
In the meantime, I've been doing my best to find other ways to find my zen. Going for walks is ok from the physical perspective but I get bored quickly and find myself wishing I did have my iPod. I haven't quite gone to meditation yet though I do find the bus ride to class strangly soothing. Hopefully my body elects to let me back on the road soon. 33 is way too young of an age to have to think up a second act.
Brian
As Becca and I took a week or so to take stock of our lives and try to make some goals for 2008 and beyond, one of them for me involved the blog. I know I've been negligent (at best) of updating it with my thoughts. A lot of this has to do with the fact that my writing has picked up a trait from my wife: trying for too much and not getting anything on (virtual) paper. We had a saying at FanBuzz (my previous job): sometimes it's better to get a B+ product up than to be constantly striving for the A. So while I'm not promising you a steady stream of B+ writing, I am promising that the site will be updated more often. Sometimes it may only consist of a brief thought, sometimes it'll be a book and sometimes we may just put up some pictures. But for those 3 of you who still read this, we promise new material!
I hope 2008 is off to a good start for everyone. For us we are simply hoping for your health and good luck in 2008.
See you on the interwebs soon!
Brian
Well, less thoughts than a quote for the holiday weekend. I personally find eggnog quite tasty but can't get over laughing at this quote:
"You know what drink I don't like? Eggnog. Who thought this up? I want to get a little drunk, but I also want some pancakes." - Dave Attell
Happy Holidays to everyone!
Brian
Your Merrian-Webster Word of the Year:
I know. Three plus weeks between updates on the blog. We might get around to writing about the Davis Cup finals and other subjects soon. No promises during the batty holiday season though.
In the meantime, Becca is in Twin Cities for business and I'm officially half way through my MBA program, having finished finals last night. It feels good to be done and have a four week break before classes get going again. I might even be able to get in some non-school related reading which would be nice. Being done with school would feel better if I haven't been fighting some sort of super-flu for the last week. The majority of the sickness is coming from a cough that just refuses to go away and has left my throat feeling like torn up particle board. Hence the mention of Val Kilmer's best character EVER.
"Nonsense, I have not yet begun to defile myself."
Ok, back to the sick bed...
Brian
