Flo in 
I am a scientist. What exactly does that mean?? Well, maybe I know a little more chemistry or biology then the normal person but not necessarily. What it really means is that I’ve been trained to think critically. To read a report or paper and to analyze it. As a result of the schooling and working in the field for years, I have the ability to see both sides of things. When presented with a situation and a result I can almost always come up with 2 or 3 possibilities. I’ve honed this talent in my work. I do chemistry and when things don’t work I need to figure out why, so it really is an art I’ve perfected over the years.
As a result of this ‘talent’ there are very few things I believe with an absolute positive certainty. I will never forget reading the story in the paper about the BTK killer and coming up with 3 possible scenarios as to why he had disappeared for 25 years. It was at that point I knew I had a problem. Seriously. I knew that unless told by the source, I rarely am sure of anything. By the same token, when I am told something by the source I don’t doubt it. When I am told something by someone who is not the source, I do not believe it until I can verify it for myself. And before I can verify it I can come up with 2 different stories for whatever it is.
Many times this is a benefit to me, but just as many times it’s a curse. I actually envy people who can believe in something, anything, with an absolute certainty. I’m never absolutely positive that the sun will come up in the morning. I generally don’t believe it until I see it.
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I was driving home tonight when I heard on ABC News that procrastination is now considered a medical condition. That is insane. I’m going to write a huge post on this…….later……
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It’s that time again. Time for a self portrait. I’ve taken to hiking on Sunday mornings to pick lilikoi for my birds. Inside are seeds surrounded by a wonderful, sweet pulp. Lilikoi is absolutely delicious and the birds just go wild over it. Right now it’s in season but the only real place to find it is in the mountains. It grows on vines that grow wild. So the past few Sunday mornings I head up to the trail near my house and hunt for lilikoi. Today I decided to take my self-portrait up there.
It’s a little fuzzy, sorry!! I was balancing the camera on a rock and some sticks.
I look at photos of myself lately and more and more I’m seeing my Mom and my sisters. It’s crazy. I guess I’m approaching the age I remember them from and so that’s why I think I look like them. Maybe I should get some promotional pens with my name on them so when I move back to the mainland I won’t be confused with my sisters 
Well, I’m off to Midlife Musings to see who else played today.
JG8D69D
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There are many things in this world I just do not understand.
I don’t understand how people who belong to a religion can be absolutely, positively sure that theirs is the only true religion. Is it not possible that there is more than one way to worship God?
I don’t understand how creationists can be so adamant against evolution. Does God sit in his heaven putting fossils in the ground for us to find and then laugh at the theories we develop?? Seems kind of a strange thing for God to do.
I don’t understand how people can believe anything Al Gore says. My God he said he created the internet!!!! He also lied when interpreting some of the graphs on An Inconvenient Truth. The inconvenient truth is that Al Gore can’t be bothered with the truth. Please don’t bog him down in facts, he’s got emotions to play on.
And I don’t understand people attitudes towards sex. Friday night I watched 20/20 and they did a show on Attitudes towards sex in America. It absolutely boggles the mind. Sex and food are the two forces that drive animals in everything they do, and face it, we are animals. There are some animals that are born only to mate and die. That’s it. They don’t even get to eat. Sex is also extremely natural. Almost everyone on earth has sex at some point in their lives. You would think it would be something we could freely share with each other. Wait, that didn’t come out right
Seriously, what is the big deal about sex. It’s not dirty. It’s not nasty. It’s a natural body function, like peeing and pooping. We talk to people about that, why can’t we talk about sex. Why is such a dirty little secret??? I really don’t get it. I think that leads to a lot of problems that we wouldn’t otherwise have. If kids were exposed to as much sex as they are violence, they would be as immune to it as they are the violence. Things that you are exposed to on a regular basis become normal and just a part of life. Hiding sex and not talking about it makes it something of interest to kids.
I do think it needs to be portrayed in a better light. The way some of the movies and music show it it’s not very nice. But again, that goes towards the hiding it. If you bring it out into the open so to speak, it will lose a lot of it’s power and shock value.
I don’t know. Maybe I’m way off base here but it sure seems to me that trying to hide, deny, or supress something that is a basic instinct just really screws up society and people. That’s not to say that we should all be having sex all over the place. We were given brains and therefore should raise sex to a higher level then just basic instinct. But I don’t see that happeneing when it’s hidden away and considered something dirty.
We talk about alcohol with our kids and explain how it’s something that adults drink and that children can’t have. We explain that when they are old enough to drink they have to do it responsibily. Well why can’t we do the same thing with sex. Explain how it’s something that should be shared between two adults who have a committment to each other. And quite honestly it doesn’t matter what sex those adults are. Really. I have seen some seriously messed up heterosexual relationships, so I don’t think we hold any special claim to unions of any kind.
In some ancient societies at certain ages, boys and girls were taken and introduced to the beauty of sex by older people. Now, I don’t find that perverse. I think it’s a great way to do things. You should be introduced to something in a calm, gentle manner by someone who knows what they are doing. You wouldn’t teach someone to drive if you’ve never been behind the wheel of a car would you?? Would you try to teach someone something you’ve only heard about but never actaully seen or gotten the details about?? That’s what happens with sex.
I just think this is ridiculous the way this society treats sex. We don’t want to talk about it. We try to hide it away. Yet we let our 6 year olds dress like hookers and they talk about taking diet pills to lose weight . Yeah, talk about a mixed message.
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After a couple of week hiatus I am back to the photo hunt. When I saw this subject I immediately thought of this picture:
This was a display at a store in the mall a couple of weeks ago. I don’t know what it was then and I still don’t know. It brings to mind all kinds of obscene thoughts. I seriously don’t know what this is supposed to be but it is kind of freaky. Reminds me of something out of a horror movie. Sorry the picture is so bad, I just could not get a decent picture of this thing. Maybe that’s a good thing?? They should put this in the food court, I think it could help with weight loss.
I’m off to see who else played today. If you want to check the Photo Hunt out, head over to tnchick and check it out. It’s fun.
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or woman…. whatever……
As you may have heard, we are moving to Colorado. I’m itching to make a trip to get the lay of the land and figure out what areas we like and don’t like. I want to buy a house and need to see what areas are better than others. That’s what I really want to do. We didn’t take a vacation last year because we were planning a really big one this year. But now that we are moving and I want to go visit. I have been to Colorado before but not in years and never with the thought of living there. It’s all very exciting. I’m thinking maybe taking a long weekend and going…..But that would cost a lot of money and should we do that now or wait and do it in the spring when the move is closer…….So many questions.
I was looking at airfares and they are not as expensive as I thought. But I was thinking, to make the trip fun, we could fly into San Francisco and drive to Denver. The prices on car rental is not that bad and we could really see the country. Advantage has some really great prices on rental cars. In fact, you can save up to 50% on luxury and convertible cars in some rental markets. Of course, there’s no discount in Denver but there is in Salt Lake. What if we flew to Salt Lake and drove from there. That might work.
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Since I wrote the last post a couple of hours ago, I’ve been thinking about my blogs. When I started each one I had a vision for it and a dream of what I wanted it to be.
Step Away from the Cake was my first and is still dearest to my heart. I started this one almost 4 years ago as I was beginning my running/triathlon journey. I had kept workout logs and diet journals for years and just decided to take it to the internet. This blog I started writing what was in my mind and in my life regarding health and fitness. I had no other goals than to write these things down. I wrote whatever I wanted to and never thought about someone reading it. I still write that way.
Flo’s Place was started a little over a year ago because I realized I had lots of things to say about lots of things that weren’t necessarily health and fitness related. Since most of the readers of Cake are runners or triathletes I decided to open another forum to write about the other stuff on.
The Ones Who Get Screwed is a newer blog that I started when I got really pissed off one day at the political system. This blog has been languishing lately and I know why but I’m not sure I’m going to fix it.
Feather, Fur, and Fins is the latest blog and I started that so I had a place to write about my pets and animals in general. It’s one of my favorites because I love talking about my animals.
What has happened is that for Flo’s Place and Screwed I put too much thought into the posts. I consider what I’m writing and how I’m writing it. I censor myself because I don’t want to get too controversial or piss people off. As a result I look back on some of the posts I’ve written and they sound stiff and awkward to me, I can just imagine how they read. I would see other blogs and see things they were doing and think, oh, I should do that, and then try to do it on my blogs. Well, I’ve decided that crap has to stop. The posts I get the most comments on, on all blogs, are the posts where I’m most honest. I really believe honesty and passion come through in blogging. If I’m trying to make a post that people will respond to, it never works. But every time I write from my heart I get responses.
So starting right here and right now there will be no holds barred posting. I will write about anything I feel passionate about at the moment. I will write about things that interest me and that I have opinions about. I fully expect to piss people off and for people to think I’m an idiot and I don’t have a problem with that. I’m tired of trying to be someone I’m not and to write things I don’t care about. So you can expect to see a variety of topics covered here, everything from cooking to politics. I’m not going to hold back though I will try to keep the topics to the appropriate blogs. Cake will be health and fitness, Screwed will be politics, and Feather will be animals. That leaves all the other categories for this blog. So don’t be surprised if you see a post on cattle supplies, we are planning on buying some acreage in Colorado after all
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I’ve written about Entrecard a number of times on this blog and if you haven’t joined it yet what the heck are you waiting for??? The guy in charge over there, Graham, is really an evil genius. First, he came up with this whole dropping cards things. That is unbelievably cool. It exposed me to a lot of blogs I never would have found otherwise and I’m sure caused people to find me who never would have. Then, he started this whole Entrecard-Digg thing. That’s pretty cool too. Entrecard members have this huge pool of friends on Digg now and interesting posts are being passed back and forth all the time. Awesome.
Now, he’s outdone himself. Entrecard has partnered with SezWho so you actually get EC credits for making comments on blogs. This is outstanding. So you sign up for Entrecard, you sign up for SezWho, you install both on your blog, you start dropping cards and leaving comments. You earn credits, you buy advertising, you attract more readers. Pure genius.
When I first started Entrecard I made it a game to see how many cards I could drop. That got old fast. Then I started dropping just on blogs I liked. That was limiting. Now, every night, Sammy and I sit and return drops from my inbox. Read peoples latest posts. Follow interesting ad on the widget. Generally spend about an hour cruising blogs. I’ve begun commenting a lot more, even before the SezWho thing, just because I was finding lots and lots more interesting things to read and respond to.
Anyway, I love Entrecard and have from the start. I think this partnership with SezWho is an absolute stroke of genius. If you haven’t checked it out you really should. After all, it’s easier then trying to find deals on some las vegas hotels
No, not me!!! Olive Riley has passed away. I just found her blog while I was dropping my Entrecards for the night and it’s amazing. She was 108. She didn’t actually do the blogging. Someone typed for her as well as uploaded pictures and movies, but everything was all her. How amazing is that? That is what I want to be like when I grow up. Go over to her blog and check out the pictures of her, read the stories too. It’s truly great how sharp and with it she was. I really hope I can be that sharp when I get old. That is just fantistic!! I want to be just like her when I grow up. I wonder if she has a used cisco router or if all her equipment was brand new
| 3.5 (1 person) |
I run and do triathlons. Running I have no problem with though I can be slow sometimes. Biking I have no problem with though it’s hard sometimes. Swimming I have a problem with. I’m a good swimmer. I’m a fairly strong swimmer. I can swim for a long time. But for some reason, that I have not been able to completely figure out, when I do a triathlon I panic during the swim. I could have practiced in that area for months, but the morning of the race I will panic. I don’t know exactly why. I’ve tried all kinds of things, meditation, positive imaging, breathing, nothing works. I can be standing on the beach calm as can be but as soon as the gun goes off I freak. I hate it and there is no reason for it. No reason at all. But I may have found a secret weapon.
AbsoluteCalm is an all natural supplement that helps calm nerves. It’s a magnolia extract that helps soothe and calm you so you can do whatever it is you need to do. When I read about this I immediately thought of my triathlons. In a triathlon the swim is the first event and if I was calm and in control I think I could do pretty well in it, which would result in me doing pretty well in the overall race. But I can see how this can lend itself to all kinds of situations. Have to give a presentation? Have a big job interview for a position you really want? Meeting the new in-laws?? I can see a thousand situations where this can come in handy.
It’s a magnolia extract, I said that already, that helps calm you down in as little as 30 minutes. You can take it before a big event and be ready to go. It can last for up to 8 hours so that’s plenty of time to carry you through just about anything. I think this could really help me especially because I can take it before I even start to get nervous. 30 minutes before a race I’m calm as a cucumber. It’s only once I hit that water that things go haywire. I may just have to try this for my next race.
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