Andy R.’s Neighborhood

VOTE FOR ME.  I will love you forever.  There is no greater thanks I can give, other than the gratitude of my 5th grade students...and cupcakes, natch!

I found this over at BoingBoing. If the explanations of hurricanes and their force was never clear to you, this is a great video to explain why and how they get to be such enormous storms.

I'd also recommend Isaac's Storm, by Erik Larson. That's the tale of a huge hurricane that nearly wiped Galveston, TX off the map in 1900 and the man responsible for predicting it and warning others. Another great read from the author of Devil In The White City.

Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History

Erik Larson

Interesting article at Bizjournal, where they've compiled a list of 216 cities and determined where the money lives in US towns with populations above 100,000. The standard line that the larger towns trend toward lower median incomes has proven not a hard-and-fast rule. Some communities have bucked this trend--tied in part to education level of the residents, no doubt, but at least 4 of the bottom five (below) have taken some severe hits in manufacturing and job loss, which has lowered median incomes and home values.

The Top 5:

1. Arlington, VA
2. Thousand Oaks, CA
3. Naperville, IL
4. Alexandria, VA
5. Stamford, CT

1. Dayton, OH
2. Rochester, NY
3. Syracuse, NY
4. Flint, MI
5. Brownsville, TX

[Boring sports medicine entry]

I'm a good 25 miles behind schedule with my marathon training, because I have (dramatic music) Morton's Neuroma. My last run was 8 miles last Wednesday, and my foot hurt like never before when I was done. It's been hurting for about the last four weeks.

Basically, Morton's Neuroma is a pinched nerve between two toes, and as you might guess, it hurts like a mofo. I started wearing a pad on my bunion on the same foot, and that led to the rest of the joints in the foot getting crowded, thus the pinched nerve between my 2nd and 3rd toe.

I'm encouraged by my podiatrist's assessment that I'll be running again by the weekend, but I won't run the full 12 miles I'm scheduled for on Saturday until I know how a few miles feel.

He says I also should get my bunion corrected, and my first metatarsal is a little short, so he'd want to see that get lengthened. All innuendo aside, "bone lengthening" is a phrase that fills me with dread.

Our friend Kasey, who spent some of her childhood in Germany, told us last night of a book called Struwwelpeter. It's a collection of poems by a German pediatrician for children, written around the turn of the last century. The title character, Struwwelpeter was a man who refused to cut his hair and fingernails.

There's another story of Little-Suck-A-Thumb, who learns rather violently that his mother means business when she says not to suck his thumb. Never mess with a woman with a phallus bigger than yours (you'll understand when you see this amateur video of the story).

Click the link, it's a Google vid.

I ran the Chicago Distance Classic Half Marathon on Sunday, and got an offical time of 1:48:16. Turns out that the course was longer than 13.1 miles, though. While my time set me firmly in Corral D for the Chicago Marathon (the lowest of the specified start corrals), with the adjusted time for the longer half-marathon, I missed Corral C by 31 seconds. Aaaaugh!

I have been running with a Nike+ sportband for about five weeks now, and I just hit the 100 mile mark on it.

I think I'll sign up for the Banco Popular Chicago Half Marathon for September, now. I know I make novice mistakes in racing, so I just need more racing experience.

Reuters has a story this morning about the Clintons' backhanded remarks about Obama's competence and general Democratic party unity, on the virtual eve of the convention without a clear idea who Obama will name as a running mate.

From the article:

Stephen Hess, a political science professor at George Washington University, said if the Clintons are having trouble leaving the limelight, it is because the news media will not let them.

Stop sticking a microphone under their noses! They love attention more than anything else at all. I respect President Clinton for his term in office and his post-Presidential efforts in fighting AIDS and international debt. I think he's a great man, in fact. Senator Clinton, well, a little less respect for her, but that's not my point. But the two of them are such attention whores since Hillary started her campaign for the Presidency, they will subterfuge the party's interests for their own perceived entitlement. It boils my blood, and they're ruining their own legacies.

Meanwhile, Russia has bombed Georgia at the very same moment that the Olympic opening ceremonies unfold.

CAN'T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG FOR A WEEK OR TWO AND PLAY A FEW GAMES?

e.e. Cummings

Share your favorite poem.

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond

any experience,your eyes have their silence:

in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,

or which i cannot touch because they are too near



your slightest look will easily unclose me

though i have closed myself as fingers,

you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens

(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose



or if your wish be to close me, i and

my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,

as when the heart of this flower imagines

the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals

the power of your intense fragility:whose texture

compels me with the color of its countries,

rendering death and forever with each breathing



(i do not know what it is about you that closes

and opens;only something in me understands

the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)

nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands