I Can't Stand the Republicans and the Tea Party

Just thinking about the Republicans and the debt limit makes we want to run off with Palm Apodoca from Five Easy Pieces, I mean, I don't even want to talk about it.


Please note that I am so down on the Republicans and the Tea Party that I now even use Russian U-Tube! I don't want to talk about it.

The Tea Party people are just crap and more crap, really, I don't even want to talk about it.

But wait, there IS more

Lab Results

Little Walter at the doctor's on Monday

Well, I did not hit the goals that my 14 year old Hindu girl cardiologist set for me, but Dr. Bruce said that was impossible. But I did reduce my overall cholesterol by 12% and my bad cholesterol by 21% and I increased my good cholesterol by 7%.

A big wonderful improvement. Well worth the effort and enough positive reinforcement to keep me on vegetables, fruits, tofu and whole grains.

Day II, Way Better than Day I

Baseball ended on 7/17 and I no longer have to run around after work racing to games, practices and hauling helmets, balls and other gear. In other words, no more excuses to NOT ride my bike into work everyday.

Last week I took the Honda in to work a couple of times during the nice weather. I also spent some time looking at new bicycles and on Sunday I bought one.

It is the Novara ETA, gotta love a bike named ETA. After discussions with Martin, a father of one of my players, and a big cycle enthusiast I went a bit more that I would have in the price dept. I got one with disk brakes (to really control my decent from our giant hill) and I think it also came with better gear molecules or whatever stuff Martin was talking about, I don't know I wasn't really paying attention.

It is pictured above and it is really cool. I like the color and it seems to ride faster than my mountain bike. It is waaay easier going up hills. The mountain bike will head to Montana and stay there as a true mountain bike should. I know it will be happier there, and I will be happy having a mountain bike there.

Yesterday I had an early morning Dr. appointment (more later) and my commute to work coincided with our thunder storm. My lesson learned was to ALSO bring extra socks, shoes and underwear - tough barefoot commando day at work, 'nuff said.

From our recent guest Tom's suggestion I have altered my route home. He noticed the giant nasty hill that would be my last effort on my journey and indicated that it might be better to go up Avalon (an easier, but longer hill) which would take me a bit out of the way, but leave me a nice cool down stretch that would be better for my heart and give me some recovery time. Great idea and I did it yesterday and will do it from now on.

Speaking of heart, I went back in for my physical yesterday to get some updated cholesterol readings. My 14 year old Hindu cardiologist wants me to get my bad cholesterol under 70 and my good above 50. I told Dr Bruce that I was sure that I had nailed these goals (based on the tofu, bran and other just plain ugly food that my resident nutritional Nazi(who swears she loves me and is doing this out of love)has me eating. I have lost over 15 pounds and am now on the good side of 200 pounds. I was just about to enter into negotiations with Dr. Bruce as to just what nailing these numbers would mean, and he stopped me cold and said, "there is no way you are going to get under these numbers!". WTF???? He showed me a chart of all my cholesterol numbers from a snapshot of my life and replied that diet for me might account for a 10% decrease, maybe 20% if I had been a really bad eater. Well, I HAVE been a really bad eater, so maybe I can get a 20% decrease, but here was his advice.

Forget fast food, pizza and sausages, but feel free to resume eating a reasonable portion of red meat at a reasonable pace (ie once a week, or so). Continue to run from processed food and the evils of white bread, white pasta and their like. And to thank my nutritionist who must truly love me.