What would you do for some Macaroni & Cheese?

So, I'm trying to lose a few pounds (a stone or so for you Brits, not money) and was wondering what was a calorie that I see on those labels all the time. I knew that a calorie was a unit of energy so with a little searching I found a handy California Energy Commission web page What is Energy?
The California Energy Commission web page says a piece of buttered toast contains about 315 kilojoules (315,000 joules, or 75.28 food calories) of energy. With that energy the web page says you could:

• Jog for 6 minutes
• Bicycle for 10 minutes
• Walk briskly for 15 minutes
• Sleep for 1-1/2 hours
• Run a car for 7 seconds at 80 kilometers per hour (about 50 miles per hour)
• Light a 60-watt light bulb for 1-1/2 hours
• Or lift that 5 lb (2.26 kg) sack of sugar from the floor to the counter 21,000 times!

Sort of helps you picture just how much effort it takes to burn off a 250 calories candy bar - like lift that sack of sugar 70,000 times.
I can't confirm or explain their numbers. I did the metric-English conversions for this post, but I've heard before that running a hour is about 700-800 calories burned, so I suspect they are in the ball park (on the pitch). I suspect 75 calories is low for a piece of butter toast, but 315K joules is 75.28 kilo-calories (aka food calories).
I think on food labels they should put "Jog 20 minutes after eating this" or other depressing (but meaningful) warnings on the labels.
For me? What will I do for mac & cheese? I'll just take a 5 hour nap.

2010 Peachtree

Peachtree 2010

I'm sure you all noticed I've not posted much this year. Not a lot going on. Just work mostly. I did run in the Peachtree this year. This was the 2nd time for me. I cut 10 minutes off my time this year. Mostly because it was cooler and much less humid. That and I drank more before and during the race. I think last time I struggled because I got a bit dehydrated.

Again with the Cables

Hello and Happy New Year!
For Christmas I got myself and new Blu-Ray DVD player with internet video streaming (aka Netflix). Beside watching Blu-Ray and regular DVDs I can also watch movies streamed 'on demand' from the internet. The Blu-Ray player is connected to the internet using the the Wired Ethernet port I installed next to my 'media cabinet.' But to hook up to the plasma I needed to run a second HDMI cable from the Blu-Ray in the media cabinet to the plasma.

The media cabinet is actually in a closet that shares a wall with the den. In the den my plasma is mounted on the fire place hearth. The picture shows the plasma just after I hung it a couple years ago. If you look closely you'll notice there are no cables connected to it in that picture. Sort of reminds you of those commercials where a handsome couple sit watching their flat screen hanging cable free on a perfectly clean wall. If you read the disclaimer that flashes up during the commercial it says 'simulated picture shown' - most people believe they say that to make an excuse for why their super HD picture looks so bad on your crappy TV. But I know different. They 'simulate' the picture because you can't get a real picture on a flat panel without running lots of cables to it! And cables showing can really spoil the picture - which I'm sure some readers know too well.

Well over the last couple years as I hooked up various devices to my flat screen plasma and cable (mis) management got to be a real problem. No perfect picture here.

On the lower left you can see the hole in the wall the cables use to pass through to the closet on other side. I never finished the opening. I have enlarged the hole as I ran more cables through it.

The Blu-Ray used the last remaining connection on the plasma's input panel, so with no more cables possible I decided it was time to finish off 'the hole.' I also wanted to hide the cables. The next picture shows the finish outlets with the new connectors. 2 HDMI, 2 component video, 1 video, external antenna, 3 speakers cables, sub-woofer, and power cords.

Not bad. Much neater for sure. I ended up adding a 2nd opening for speaker wires for the surround sound. The black bundle of (13) cables snakes up the side of the bricks. Way better than it was, but I was still not happy.

While staying with Dexter and Jan in Atlanta for the Peachtree Road Race I noticed Jan had put their cables inside of a tube she made out of fabric. It was gathered fabric and I thought it looked nice and did a good job of hiding the cables. I don't have access to a sewing machine, so Gale suggested I just make the hem using glue. Then use hook-and-loop along the edges of the fabric so when fasten it would form a tube. So I took a shot at it and made my own cable tube!

I don't have Jan's sewing skills so it does not gather as nice as hers. My fabric also does not match the wall paper like hers (Wall paper? What wall paper? I anit got no wall paper in my house!). But, I think it turned out pretty good. Doesn't look like a snake crawling up the wall now.

So after about $150 in cables and connectors, a bit of fabric and glue I'm having a Happy New Year!

I Remembered my Camera

Toronto

So I had another quick trip up to Toronto this last week. We needed to be there Monday AM so Wally and I flew up Sunday. We decided to take a late morning flight so we have time to do a bit of sight seeing. I had been to the Rogers Center on a earlier trip but forgot my camera, so I didn't get any pictures. I got a few this time.

Oh BTW - I'm on Facebook now. Look me up, and let's connect.

1223 Vs 858

So I picked up a pair of New Balance 1223 to replace my 2 year old 858 at the New Balance Outlet store in Lawrence, MA. In the store I had a new 858 on one foot and the 1223 on the other and liked the 1223's better (they were the same price). So when I got home I was surprised when I ran that the 1223s sort of jarred me way more than I remember the 858s did. So next day I ran in my old 858s and sure enough THEY JARRED ME more than the 1223s! WHAT!

So I'm now running in the 1223s. Moral of the story: Don't take 4 days off from running before buying shoes!

Fall of a Different Color

New Hampshire

Spent a 4 day weekend with Gail and John in New Hampshire. I've known John for 15+ years through work. He's been telling me about his passive solar house, pellet furnace, and Maple syrup making for a couple years now so I wrangled an invite and flew up to check it out.

All I can say is New Hampshire and it's people are SWEET! Especially John and Gail. They were wonderful host and hostess. They went out of their way to make sure I had a great weekend. I hope to return the favor soon. Enjoy the pictures and comments!

Wired

Not been up to a lot lately. I've had a phone line to the satellite receiver/DVR running across a doorway for a couple years now. I've been wanting to run a phone line through the wall to get rid of that wire since it runs across at the floor. Some of you might remember I don't like visible wires (see Mission Accomplished). Been living with this because besides the phone wire I need to have wired Internet access for the satellite/DVR. That requires an Ethernet jack, and I didn't have the tools to work with Ethernet cables. So time sort of went by.

Well I ordered some Cat5e crimpers and 8P8C connectors. Then I ordered some jacks and a 110 Punch Down tool along with some Cat5 cable and now I have two Ethernet jacks and a phone jack in the closet. The other end of the cables go to a new outlet with jacks I installed in my home office near the router. I also expanded my home network by adding a 4 port switch. I was out of ports on my router.

The satellite receiver will down load movies from the internet (for a price). I decided to wire two Ethernet ports so that I'd have a back up or extra in case of failure. Running two Cat5 cables through a wall, then the crawl space then up and into another wall is as easy as one. I might use the other jack for a wireless access point since the closet is on the opposite end of the house from my current access point. We'll see. Stay tuned...