ASU campus

I am attending some meetings just north of the ASU campus and this sculpture caught my eye. I think they are designed to catch sunlight and focus them somewhere. I took this picture around 7:30 in the morning so the sun wasn't up high enough yet. It is about 50°F here and many here are all bundled up with knit hats, scarfs and mittens. I was surprised by the snow on the flight down. It was continuous until just north of the Grand Canyon. The Alaska Airlines flight flew right over the canyon and I'll post a picture of that later. I haven't transferred the pictures from my camera yet.

What are we doing here?

At least that is what comes to mind when I look at the temperature today. -49°F at 10:00am and still dropping. I have a meeting on lower campus and I'm still trying to decide whether to walk or not. I think the "Feels Like" followed by "N/A" in the image says it all. Who cares what it feels like since you'd have to be crazy to be out in it. Today would have been a good day to stay home.

I walked on the treadmill for a while but it was after dinner. When am I going to learn that I need to exercise before dinner since I usually feel bad after. Anyway, I did get in 3 1/2 miles or so but that is a far cry from the 6 miles per day I'll need to average to walk around the moon. Hopefully, I'll get in more walking as the week progresses.

Global Warming!?

I felt motivated enough to walk down to lower campus this afternoon. This is in spite of the -41°F temperatures this morning. At least the air smelled a whole lot better than it currently does in the building. It was nice and sunny and fairly quiet on the walk down though it got crowded on the return trip. The cool picture was sent out by Kate Wattum this morning showing the wonderful weather here in Fairbanks. On the way in, the thermometer in the truck stopped registering at -40F. Maybe that is trying to tell us something. But at least it isn't windy.

I stopped at the UA Tech center to see if they had anything new. No Macbook Air on display and they figured that there wasn't much of a market due to the lack of an optical spindle. I mentioned that I used my optical drive less than once per month and even then, if there was a process to use the optical drive in another machine, that would work fine for me. To me, the biggest shortcomingvwas the inability to span your desktop to another display. In other words, they used the video card from the Macbook instead of the Macbook Pro. I'm feeling a bit nauseous now probably due to a poor lunch choice. Taco Bell in Wood Center was cheaper than a salad and now, I'm paying for it.

I ran some on the treadmill averaging about 4.8 mph. I still don't feel as good running as I did last month. I guess the trips really have a negative impact. The medication is making its presence known this evening but at least I got some exercise in before dinner. This prescription is probably sufficient to make one not want to eat again. It is called Byetta and it has only been approved by the FDA since 2005. It works great but some of the side effects are kind of rough. I guess I should stop whining.

Not Motivated (again)

I don't feel like walking this evening. In fact, I don't really feel like doing much of anything. I feel very ill from the medication and can't really do much else except lie down. There isn't anything on TV. Watching travel shows of places I know I'll never see, foods I'll never taste and home improvement shows showing uncluttered spaces that will never be can be somewhat depressing. Usually walking helps but I don't think it'll help today. I've still don't know what motivates people to exercise. It isn't one of those joyfull activities that make you want to do it all the time. Usually, while running all I can think about is stopping.

Later - I did end up walking on the treadmill but never really felt better all evening.

Sunday evening - I jogged a bit on the treadmill this evening but only went 4 miles. It is really cold outside and that may be having an effect on me. I've been feeling chilled with sore muscles. I did walk to church this morning in spite of the -28F temperature. At least I don't feel miserable like I did yesterday. I did watch the Super Bowl game this afternoon and it was a pretty good game. It didn't matter to me who won but I enjoyed it nonetheless. Unfortunately, I wasn't walking on the treadmill while watching the game. Phoenix looked like a zoo. Right now, it is -45F and it feels cold. I'm not one that normally complains about the weather, but this cold spell really seems to be lasting a long time. In reality, it has only been a couple of weeks but it seems to be much longer.