Just wanted to share a few quick tidbits since I haven’t had much time to do so recently.1. Amelia started walking about a month ago. We’ve got some video, but due to the silliness of modern digital cameras and digital video editors, it’s been a pain coming up with a good way to rotate some of the clips we made in portrait rather than landscape orientation. Oops. I’ve finally discovered exactly what I’ve been looking for to resolve this issue: a plug-in for iMovie HD that can rotate and resize video… and it’s only $4.50! I’m just waiting for the registration code. Stay tuned.2. I also realize I haven’t posted many photos lately. I’ve got some that I plan to post soon… just haven’t had much time to go through them all yet.3. I’ve been spending many hours ripping out an aggressive ground cover from our flowerbeds called Goutweed in the time between when I put the girls down to bed and it gets dark. I’m not sure what the previous home owners were thinking in planting it, but it completely takes over the flowerbeds to the point where the other plants are hardly visible. No matter how much we remove, there’s always some that comes back. At this rate I figure in about 6 years we’ll _hopefully_ have it removed.4. I’ve finally gotten around to updating my We Endure training log after a few months of neglect (though not because I haven’t been exercising). It’s so nice not to see “2 months ago” in my sidebar widget.5. As a Father’s Day gift, Jennifer arranged for me to start taking guitar lessons through a local music shop. It’s actually been a great gift and something I’ve been wanting to do for a while, in spite of playing for about 10 years. I’ve taught myself most of what I know and have picked up a few bad habits here and there. I also have focused mostly on learning songs (or at least the interesting parts) rather than general technique, so the lessons have helped in that respect. It’s also good to have time set aside dedicated to it and motivation for practicing specific skills.6. Oh, and that Mango Black Tea from Trader Joe’s that I mentioned in the previous post makes fantastic sun tea. When iced, it reminds me of a lavender ice tea I once had at the Greystone Restaurant at the Culinary Institute of America in Napa a few years ago.
Author Archives: brahmwindeler
Tagged
I’ve been tagged. Usually I don’t participate in these chain-letter type things, but it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything so I figure this is as good an excuse as any to get my butt in gear. So I’m supposed to post 8 facts/habits, eh? Well, here goes.1. I spend much too much time on the computer these days. Not only do I do it for my job, but I’m hooked on anything with an RSS/Atom feed. I initially thought Bloglines was the best thing to come along since sliced bread… I no longer had to keep going back to my favorite web sites to check for updates. Now I’ve got a bazillion feeds in my blogroll… friends’ blogs, techie news sites, photo streams, comics, deals, saved Craigslist searches, you name it. It’s hard to keep up, yet I feel obligated because I might miss some kind of gem. It’s a bit overwhelming. I think I might need to put a few feeds on probation.2. Sara, the person who tagged me, is the wife of the brother of an ex-girlfriend from high-school/college and to whom I unfortunately haven’t spoken face to face in probably a decade… but we have similar taste in music (see #3) and they’re good people. So I have their blog in my blogroll. See #1.3. Back in highschool/college, I listened to Toad the Wet Sprocket a lot with said ex-girlfriend and a number of her friends and close family, including Sara. So when I saw a post on her blog about a band whose music she really enjoyed called The Weepies, I decided to check them out. After a few listens to the samples on the iTunes Store, I bought their latest album Say I Am You and had it on heavy rotation from late summer of 2006 through the winter of 2007.4. This album was on heavy rotation during this time much because, well, lets just say I was in a… melancholy… mood, to put it lightly. Between the stresses of adjusting to a second child, dealing with knee pains that prevented me from running (after getting hooked on it while training for a marathon) and dealing with SAD symptoms brought on by the dull gray Michigan winter (yes, I’ve checked in to the Hotel California) among other things, it was not the best of times.5. On a lighter note, I’m a mango nut. It all started many years ago with dried mango fillets that I sampled at my aunt’s house in Nevada over the holidays. For the longest time, that’s pretty much all I had a craving for (not the sugar coated spears… bleh), even to the point of putting 5 lb. bags on my birthday/holiday wish lists. However, earlier this spring I tried a few varieties of fresh mangoes. Based on what I tried, I believe Champaign mangoes are the ones used for the dried fillets. What brought this all to mind was the fact that I came home from Trader Joe’s this evening with Mango Lemonade, Pomegranate Mango juice, and Mango black tea.6. Speaking of tea, I’m a big drinker of said beverage, though I’m fairly picky. Some of my favorites:
- Bodum’s Best Black Tea: a mild black/green tea blend, yummy with a bit of sugar. I originally came across this as a sample in a Bodum loose leaf tea press we received as a wedding gift. I ordered more from their web site once upon a time, but they no longer sell any tea online. It can still be ordered by calling their New York store (which I have done).
- Irish or English Breakfast/Teatime: pretty much any brand will do. With whole milk and sugar… one of my favorites. I was turned on to this by some Irish friends who would serve it when we paid them a visit to chill out to their latest music finds.
- Tazo Honeybush: naturally sweet, caffeine-free. Needs no sweetener since it is not bitter like a black tea. It’s a good late evening tea that doesn’t run the risk of keeping me awake late.
- Stash Licorice Spice: another naturally sweet, caffeine-free tea that requires no sweetener. Also good in the evening, though I prefer it in the cooler autumn or winter months after a good meal, with or without desert. My mom introduced this one to me.
I enjoy green tea with a Chinese meal, though I rarely fix it at home. I dislike Darjeeling. I’m not a big fan of most fruity or herbal teas, either.Even though I’ll drink one to three cups of tea a day, we have managed to stock pile enough to last us the next 12 months. And yet, I just brought another box home with me tonight (see #5). *sigh*7. As long as I’m on the topic of food, I also eat two fried eggs almost every morning. Last winter I started sprinkling dried oregano and basil on them, then started using fresh home grown oregano and basil in the summer. I’ve always thought it would be cool, though perhaps a bit vane, to have something named after me. So I thought I’d call the creation “Brahman Eggs”. It looks like I’m a little late in stepping up to the plate, so to speak.8. In general, I’m not a big fan of chain letters or pyramid schemes, so I’m not going to explicitly “tag” anyone. However, if you’re reading this and decide to participate voluntarily, leave a comment to let me know. I’m only going to leave the comments open for a short while, though. I forgot to close the comments on a single post on the infrequently-used extended family blog I put together and, due to a bug in Movable Type, was not notified of approximately 13,000 spam comments (now removed) that had accumulated over a 8 month period. Hopefully I’ve learned my lesson.
M1C
As part of my current running training schedule, I was slated to run 10 miles on Saturday. Well… due to the cold weather, strong winds and icy roads up north this weekend, I chose to postpone the run until tonight when I could do it after the girls went to sleep from the comfort of my own home on the treadmill. I run on the treadmill fairly frequently, but never for such a long distance (or time) due to the mind-numbing boredom that insues. But for lack of a better opportunity and a dedication to the schedule, I put the headphones on, queued up a number of podcasts that I’ve been meaning to catch up on, and ran. I was nearing the end of my 10 miles with approximately 0.34 miles to go when I watched the elapsed time counter hit 99 minutes. Now, since there are only two digits for minutes and two for seconds on the display, I assumed it would just rollover to 00:00 at the end of that 99th minute and continue. Boy, was I wrong. Oh, I was right about going to 00:00. But the treadmill’s tread also stopped rotating and I nearly impaled myself on the console. I realize that most people don’t spend that much time on the treadmill, but they could have at least put some kind of warning label on the machine indicating what would happen at minute 100! The last thing I need right now is a running injury. I restarted the treadmill and finished up my workout without further incident. Maybe I’ll apply my own warning sticker to the console as a reminder, though I doubt I’ll forget about it after tonight’s excitement.
On the Road Again
After 3-4 months off from running due to some knee issues, in January I started ramping up my miles on the treadmill. I still experience a creaky knee when climbing stairs, but at least there is no pain. And during my runs I need to warm up gradually… starting with a quick walk for a few minutes, then a slow jog, and then eventually I can push myself fairly hard. If I start running hard too quickly, my knees definitely let me know.The majority of my runs so far have been on the treadmill but I plan to hit the streets again as the weather warms up and daylight starts sooner. I had a nice 8 mile run on Saturday, my longest run in quite some time, though my knees were a little more sore after it, likely due to the difference of running on pavement versus a treadmill.I received a Nike+iPod pedometer from my brother in December and have been using it to collect data for my runs. It’s proven to be fairly inaccurate depending on how I’ve calibrated it… if calibrated for the treadmill, it tracks about 10% low for subsequent runs and closer to 15-20% on pavement. If calibrated on pavement, the treadmill runs track about 15% too high. Regardless, it has given me a fun way to motivate me to get back into running. The graph above shows my progress for the past 3 months. I’m looking forward to watching the bars rise in the coming months.
Sleep
I slept 11 hours last night. It was excellent. That is all. Carry on.
Bright Eyes
Amelia’s first two teeth broke through on her 5 month birthday. It’s funny to see her adjust to the new set of choppers. Occassionally she’ll move her jaw up and down to feel the teeth press her gums. It’s funny to watch. She’s a bit congested, too, though we’re not sure if it’s from the teething or whether she has a cold.
She’s also learning to roll over. First it was back to front. Then front to back. Now it’s both. This evening she rolled back-to-front-to-back-to-front in about a minute. Exciting times at Casa Windeler.
Pink Peepers
I was planning on taking Kaija swimming during my lunch break today at the nearby fitness center we recently joined. Plans have changed, however. She woke up this morning with puffy, slightly blood-shot eyes. “Mommy, I had a bunch of gunk in my eyes this morning, but I wiped it out. It’s all gone now.” Uh, oh. Jennifer’s mother, whom we had seen on Friday, called us on Saturday saying she had come down with Pinkeye, most likely contracted from our niece a few days prior. Sure enough, 3-4 days later we’ve got a case of it in our house. Amelia was rubbing one of her eyes a little more than usual last night, too, but so far does not show any of the symptoms… yet. I just hope Jennifer and I can avoid it. Jennifer’s taking the girls to the doctor to get some medicine. We’ll do our best to avoid sharing it with the rest of you!
Thankful For
As part of our usual bedtime routine, I read Kaija a number of stories before tucking her in. We usually read one book after she’s in bed. Tonight it was Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. After we were done, I asked her if she ever had bad days. She replied with, “When you don’t play with me.”My heart just about broke with those words. Working from home means I see her at lunch, though I often have phone conferences I need to call in on around that time. She often wants to play after eating but sometimes my schedule doesn’t allow for it. And since I tend to work hours baised toward the West Coast, there’s not much time for me to play with her in the evening before she needs to go to bed (especially if she hasn’t napped).So for this Thanksgiving, I’m most thankful for having such a strong relationship with Kaija (and my family in general). And I’m going to make every effort to make more time to spend with her in the future.
Relay Recap
This past weekend I participated in the Detroit Free Press Marathon Relay with a number of friends that I met while training for the Bayshore marathon through Team in Training (well, plus my friend Matt that I’ve known for a while and ran the Bayshore half marathon).Participating in the relay was certainly a different experience than any of the events that I’ve done previously (5K, half marathon, marathon). There was quite a bit of logistics involved in preparing for the race… who needed to get on which shuttle, how would we pass the time while waiting (before and after our segment), how would we hand off any bags containing warm-up gear/time wasters, how would we meet up again, when could we expect the runner of the previous segment to arrive at the hand-off area. After the race was done, we felt like we had performed more in the way of mental gymnastics than a physical feet (considering we had all done marathons/half marathons previously)… especially with all of the half and full marathon runners around.Our team was called Dino Might… a play on words with TNT, the acronym used for Team in Training. SIDENOTE: Our team name was listed by one of the Free Press sports writers as an “interesting” team name.We decided to get t-shirts made, which was another fun logistical exercise in itself – one person bought some nice synthetic athletic t-shirts at a discount, I designed the artwork (the dinosaur graphic came from a clip art website), another person arranged to have the artwork printed. The final result was close to what you see above, which is mock-up I sent to the printers. The t-shirts that we were able to get for cheap were black, so I figured the orange might be appropriate considering the proximity of the race to Halloween. The orange is darker than what is shown above and I had to get rid of the weathered look to the font, but I think it turned out pretty well.With the exception of strong winds, we lucked out with the weather. We could potentially have had rain or snow as was predicted in the days leading up to the race but were graced with clear skies. Such is Michigan weather. Still, I’m glad this marathon was not my first. From what I understand the winds were brutal across Bel Isle and did not let up the whole way back to the finish (the hardest part of a marathon anyway).Due to a case of “runner’s knee” that I’ve been dealing with for the past few months, I decided to run the shortest segment (3 miles). I believe the runner’s knee was a result of pushing myself too much, too quickly in my training after the break I took when Amelia was born. As a result, the muscles around my left kneecap have become out of balance. My knee makes a grinding noise when I climb stairs, can be quite painful if I’m not careful about warming up before running, and can also be sore after running if I don’t stretch and ice it. So while I was waiting to begin my segment, I ran back and forth along one of the nearby streets for about 10 minutes, streched, then jumped up and down a bit to keep my muscles warm. It seems to have paid off, as I didn’t have any knee pain while running nor did I have much after the event. In fact, only my quad were sore the next day, likely because I had only been doing a small amount of running leading up to the race to maintain a minimal amount of fitness without causing more harm to my knees.We ran fairly well, finishing 42nd out of 194 co-ed teams with a time of 3:49:40. A friend of mine also ran the relay with some friends of his with a team name of *cough* Twigs and Berries. They finished 12th out of 34 in the all-male division with a time of 3:39:57.I’m still waiting for photos from the event to be posted. I’ll be sure to update this entry when they become available. UPDATE: Official photos have been posted.SIDENOTE #2: Included in our registration packet was a copy of Michigan Sports & Fitness magazine. My coach from Team in Training mentioned to us a few months ago that a friend of his wrote for the magazine and was soliciting “Sage Advice from Marathon Host Clubs”. I passed along a bit of advice about answering Nature’s call before hitting The Wall… and it was selected for the article! Here’s how it appeared on page 20 of the October 2006 issue:
“You have to make the mind run the body. Never let the body tell the mind what to do.” These words from famous military leader General Patton keep DTRW member Bridget La Forest going. And a bit of practical advice came from Brahm Windeler, who wishes he hadn’t experienced the discomfort first-hand: “Try to use a porta-potty before mile 18 or whenever you expect to hit The Wall, even if you don’t think you really need to go.”
Of all the things to be quoted on. 🙂
Kiddo updates
It’s been a while, so I figured I’d check in and share a bit about the kids these days.Amelia is growing by leaps and bounds these days. One of her most recent milestones was that she rolled from her back to front for the first time on Sunday. Exciting times. Next thing I know she’ll be doing summersaults like Kaija does in the livingroom these days. Amelia loves to smile at us, too, which is quite amusing considering she has no teeth yet (though Jennifer believes her eye teeth are starting to cut through)… gums from ear to ear. I am so glad she did not end up being as collicky as I thought she might in the first few months.Kaija has embraced toddlerhood with gusto. Currently she’s exploring the art of deception. If she’s doing something that she knows she shouldn’t be doing (e.g. trying to get a cookie from the cookie jar) and thinks we might be about to check on her, she’ll tell us “Don’t come in here, Momma/Dadda”. We’ll ask her if she’s doing something she shouldn’t be doing. Silence. Admittedly she still has a bit to learn.She’s also become very inquistive with regards to anything an everything. “Why?” seems to have become the question of month:Me: Let’s go, sweetie. We need to get your shoes on you.Kaija: Why?Me: Because we’re about to go to Poppie (her name for grandpa) and Grandma’s house.Kaija: Why?Me: Because they’ve invited us over for dinner.Kaija: Why?Me: Because they love us and want to see you.Kaija: Why?Me: *sigh* Because they do. Now come on. Help me get your shoes on you…orKaija: What are you doin’, Dada?Me: [insert activity here]Kaija: Why?Me: [tired of the hundreds of incessant Why? questions that I’ve answered dutifully as a supportive parent up to this point] Why not?Kaija: Why yes?Me: *sigh* Because.Kaija: *sigh* Why yes?Me: You tell me.Kaija has also become a bit more creative in exploring concepts. For some reason or another, sometime’s she’ll call me Momma. I think it initially happened on accident, but it has developed into a quasi-game. I’ll tell her, “I’m not Momma, I’m [some other relative].” Recognizing that this is not the case, she finds the suggestion amusing and plays along with something like: “No, you’re not grandma, you’re Amelia and I’m Poppie.” Tonight at the dinner table she went even further with “I’m Grandma Judy’s Poppie. I’m funny. I tell jokes”. Jennifer and I got a kick out of that.
Invisible Elevators 