Hiking in Sedona, AZ

Posted on September 3, 2008 
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I have lived here in Las Vegas for about six years, and I love it in many ways, but every now and then I get the craving to be out of the hustle and bustle of the city and closer to nature, so I have spent a few of my summers elsewhere over these last six years. I actually moved here from Sedona in Arizona, which is just about a five hour drive from Las Vegas. I spent this past May, June, and July in Sedona and came back to Vegas on August 1st.

Beautiful Sedona

From my perspective there is, for the most part, one thing to do in and around Sedona: hike. And for me, that is enough. There are those who say that there are natural vortexes in Sedona at certain sites, like Cathedral Rock and Bell Rock. I don’t know for sure what all of that means, but I think that there are electromagnetic fields everywhere, and since there is so much life and so little intrusion by man in the area, the vibe is powerful because it is all natural, stemming directly from nature without a lot of power lines and cell phone towers and man-made static. There is low population and a lot of open space. Plus, the natural beauty of the area is awe inspiring, and it leads you to feeling real good and thinking good thoughts, and that elevates the vibe as well.

bell rock w comet
There is a lot of good hiking in the area, and the locals try to keep some of it quiet, but with the ubiquity of the Internet and the hiking books that are out there, there really are few if any secrets. One of my favorite Sedona hikes is what is called Bell Trail. There is the famous Bell Rock (pictured with comet) in the Village of Oak Creek just down the road from Sedona proper, and there are great trails around Bell Rock, but Bell Trail is about 10 miles past the Village of Oak Creek.

Wet Beaver Creek runs across the red rocks below Bell Trail, and there are some great fishing spots and swimming holes, and it is visually beautiful and stunning to suddenly come across this cool and refreshing stream flowing through the scenic desert canyon. There is a window of a couple of weeks early in the summer when you can pick nearly unlimited blackberries in a couple of spots, and if you hike in and up about four miles you get to what the locals call “The Crack,” which is the spot for swimming and cliff diving.

oak creek cascade

Sedona is a special place, and the minute you see it, you understand. As you get out and into the nature that Sedona is built upon, you understand it a little more. There are mind blowing rock formations, wild flowers and varied types of plants, trees, and cacti, and wildlife: javalinas, coyotes, rabbits, hares, the ubiquitous desert quail and many species of birds, and of course our friends the lizards, tarantulas and snakes. It is a perfect road trip from Las Vegas, and I couldn’t recommend it more highly.

Photo Sources:
Flickr
Flickr
Flickr

           

Tunes For Tuesday: Music Videos

Posted on September 2, 2008 
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I got done working later in the evening the other night, and I wanted to hear a particular song, but I didn’t feel like digging through my music, so I went over to You Tube and listened to it while watching the video, and then I saw related videos in the side bar and I went to one of them, and on and on, and I spent a few hours that way. We all know that you can do that, but it’s cool when you actually do, and it was time well spent.

Listening with headphones is key so that you really get immersed in the total presentation. I thought I would share a few of the videos that I watched and listened to on the blog today.

I am a fan of The Roots, and their drummer, Questlove, found himself listening to a Loretta Lynn joint that featured Jack White from the White Stripes, and he says that he couldn’t stop listening to it. He got to thinking that he would like to work with an old school R & B artist, and he heard that Al Green was looking to work with some people from the hip hop community. The two got together, Questo put together a band, and the album “Lay It Down” was born. Check it:

While I’m at it, here is the Loretta Lynn/Jack White collab:

I heard this Death Cab For Cutie tune on the radio and it really got my attention. The video version is even better because it has a cool, hypnotic four minute intro:

The GZA, The Genius, from the Wu Tang Clan just came out with a new album, “Pro Tools.” Here is “Alphabets”:

One last video for tunes for Tuesday at the Fit Fuel Blog, a little Crazy G House Music for your headpiece:

           

Fitness, Fuel, and Fun

Posted on August 28, 2008 
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When you sit out on the back porch on a starry night ruminating on the meaning of life, puffing on a pipe and sipping on a cognac in your smoking jacket and boxer briefs, you are inevitably going to boil it down to three things: fitness, fuel, and fun. This is what our store is all about, and we try to keep the complex simple, and the simple even simpler. That’s why everyone should shop at Fit Fuel.

Why over-complicate things unnecessarily? Let’s run this down. Why do you need to be fit? The first thing that comes to mind is that you cannot be fly if you are fat. Jack Nicholson is perhaps the only exception, and he is old, rich, and famous, so he is different than you and me. If you are not fit, you will not attract the correct members of the opposite sex, and you may even find it difficult to get into the hottest clubs. And you will most definitely find it quite difficult to get into the hottest duds, and it’s hard to be flossin’ when you be a chubs, see what I mean? So fitness is key, and that’s why we decided to have a store that offers all kinds of stuff that helps people stay healthy and fit.

Now fuel comes next. You need fuel to keep your machines running, but that is somebody else’s department. We figured that the human body needs sustenance to keep it going, and this is what we call fuel. We provide you with fuel for the body, mind, and soul, and we intend to keep our fingers on the pulse of the evolving trends in nutritional supplementation and natural and organic foods. We can provide you with much of what you need to fuel your lifestyle, and we endeavor to continue to add to our offerings so that all of our customers can become the uber-people that are lying in wait inside of them.

And lastly, but certainly not leastly, life is about having fun. The aim of the game is to feel real good. In order to feel real good, you need to be fit. There is a lyric in an old Jethro Tull song: “I wouldn’t want to be a fat man, I’ve not the patience to ignore all that,” and I think Ian Anderson hit the nail on the head. Even if you are not totally fit at present, to feel good about yourself, you at least need to be working toward it and seeing steady improvement in your conditioning. As long as you feel a sense of moving forward, it’s generally all good and you can enjoy the journey.

If you are not properly fueled, it’s going to be hard to have fun. I have to admit that sometimes I feel sleepy during the day, and I suddenly realize that I forgot to eat. It’s not fun to feel tired, so fuel is key. That’s why we offer so many different ways to fuel your experience of living. We want to infuse you with nature and nutritional necessities, organic and herbal remedies, knowledge, inspiration, optimal hydration and yogic meditation. Your condition is our mission, there is no glass, and there is no ceiling on fitness and health and natural healing. We care how you feel, and we keep it real, and that is word up…the real deal.

There, now you have it. Fitness, fuel, and fun, and enjoy the night when your work is done!

           

Top 10 Reasons…

Posted on August 27, 2008 
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…to buy glow-in-the-dark condoms:

10.) They give you an excuse to buy one of those circa 1972 black lights for your bedroom.

9.) They fit well with The Liberator.

8.) They double as a night light.

7.) Ease of assembly.

6.) To promote safe sex and prevent the spread of STDs.

5.) They are a perfect conversation piece.

4.) They overstate the obvious.

3.) Cheaper than a GPS.

2.) They’re the perfect stocking stuffer.

1.) They make for good clean fun!

Glow-in-the-Dark Condoms

           

Calorie Calculator/Calories Burned Calculator

Posted on August 26, 2008 
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Gadget by LabPixies.com

Calorie Calculator

The Michael Phelps diet notwithstanding, most people in America would benefit from reducing their caloric intake. Obesity has been steadily increasing, and a recent study suggests that no less than 86% of Americans could be obese by 2030, resulting in related health care costs near 1 trillion dollars.

The state of Alabama broke new ground recently by proposing increased health care premiums for state workers who are obese. It is interesting, because free will choices that negatively impact the public health drive up health care costs for everyone, even those who do all that they can to live healthy lifestyles.

There are and have always been many different fad diets out there, but there is a basic science behind caloric intake and resultant weight maintenance, loss, or gain. A pound of body weight is equal to 3500 calories. If you are eating 2000 calories a day and maintaining your weight, if you cut out 500 calories and ate just 1500 calories a day, presumably, you would lose about a pound a week (500 calories reduced per day x 7 = 3500 calories = 1 pound).

So weight loss is not voodoo–it’s science. We also have to take into consideration the number of calories that we are burning when we exercise. There is great tool for doing so here:

Calories Burned Calculator

If you approach calorie counting and calories burned through exercise intelligently, you should be able to devise a strategy that works for you. If you want to eat a special meal or dessert on a given day, calculate the calories involved, and up your level of calorie burning exercise. Do the math, and take control of your body.

           

Sports Happenings

Posted on August 25, 2008 
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I saw the United States play Spain in the gold medal game the other night, and it was truly amazing to me that Spain was able to hang around and have a chance to win the game in the last couple of minutes. Here you have Kobe Bryant, Dwayne Wade, Dwight Howard, Chris Paul, and Lebron James on the floor and the Spaniards are playing them toe to toe. The U.S., particularly Wade and Bryant, displayed some clutch shooting down the stretch, but Spain deserves a lot of credit, and they proved that winning isn’t really the only thing. They played to their utmost potential and I think that is in fact the only thing.

The Super Bowl Champion New York Giants had a fearsome pass rush a year ago led by Osi Umenyiora and Michael Strahan. Strahan has since retired, and Umenyiora suffered a season ending knee injury on Saturday against the Jets. The Giants have responded by moving Mathias Kiwanuka back to defensive end, which makes the slim chances of a Strahan return even slimmer.

Lou Holtz appeared on College Football Live on Saturday and predicted that the University of Notre Dame will win 11 games this season. He then went on to opine on the feasibility of porcine flight.

Arizona Cardinals QB Matt Leinart completed seven passes in two quarters against the Raiders on Saturday night. Four to his teammates, and three to Raiders’ defenders. He was 4-12 for 24 yards with the three picks. Veteran Kurt Warner has reportedly won the starting job in Arizona.

Chad Pennington will be the Dolphins starter, and the #3 pick in this year’s draft, Matt Ryan out of Boston College, beat out Joey Harrington, Chris Redman, and D.J. Shockley to get the starting nod in Atlanta. It’s tough for a rookie to earn a starting job in the NFL and I have to give Ryan a lot of credit.

Franciso Rodriguez, the Los Angeles Angels overpowering closer, earned his 50th save of the season in a 5-3 Angels victory over the Minnesota Twins. Bobby Thigpen holds the major league record for saves in a single season with 57. The Angels have 33 game remaining.

AP Preseason NCAA Football Rankings

# 1.Georgia
# 2.Ohio St.
# 3.USC
# 4.Oklahoma
# 5.Florida
# 6.Missouri
# 7.LSU
# 8.West Virginia
# 9.Clemson
# 10.Auburn

The first Monday Night Football game of the regular season is just two weeks away. Minnesota plays at Green Bay at 7:00 PM (ET) and Denver is at Oakland at 10:15 PM.

           

Baseball Hitting Home Stretch

Posted on August 22, 2008 
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We’re getting late into August, and people are starting to get football fever, but the baseball season is hitting the home stretch and it will be a mad dash toward the playoffs. I like watching football much more than I like to watch baseball, but I actually follow baseball more closely because I am a big fan of my favorite team.

I have to admit that I am a lifelong fan of the Philadelphia Phillies. That designation is not an easy one to bear. The Phils have been around for 126 years, and they have won a grand total of one (1) World Series. Last season, on July 25th, the Phillies accomplished the ignominious distinction of being the first professional sports franchise to lose 10,000 games. Ouch.

But they came on late last year and made an astounding run to catch the Mets and win the National League East on the last day of the season. The New Yorkers had a seven game lead over the Phillies on September 12th. Phillies historians are familiar with this type of painful collapse; they had a 6.5 game lead back on September 20th of 1964 and lost the last ten games of the season, winding up a game behind the St. Louis Cardinals.

This year the tables have turned a little bit. The Phillies had a nice lead on the Mets early in the season, but since the All Star break, their vaunted offense, led by Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley and Ryan Howard hasn’t been able to hit, and the Mets have made their move. They are 2.5 games ahead of the Phils as of this writing.

The Phillies never seem to do the things that good teams do to address their needs before the trading deadline. The Milwaukee Brewers acquired last year’s American League Cy Young Award winner CC Sabathia just before the trading deadline. He’s started nine times since then. His record? 9-0 with a 1.60 ERA, and five, count ‘em, five complete games. The Brew Crew is sitting 2.5 games in front of the Cardinals for the National League Wild Card spot, and 5.5 games behind the Central Division front running Cubs, who have the best record in baseball at 78-49.

On a similar note, the Dodgers picked up Manny Ramirez from the Red Sox and their anemic offense has improved, but the Arizona Diamondbacks have won eight of their last ten and hold a slim 2 game lead over Joe Torre’s charges in the National League West.

Over in the junior circuit, the big surprise is the Tampa Bay Rays, who had the worst record in baseball on this date a year ago and are presently tied with the Los Angeles Angels for the best record in the American League at 77-49. The two teams sit atop the Eastern and Western Divisions respectively, and the White Sox are clinging to a half game lead over the Minnesota Twins in the Central. The Red Sox and Twins are deadlocked with identical 73-54 records in the Wild Card race. The Yankees run of thirteen consecutive years in the playoffs is in serious jeopardy; they’re sitting six games behind the Beantowners and the Twins.

As for my Phillies, they have six games left against the Mets, so they have a chance to make up ground when they play head to head. If they can’t beat the Mets when it counts, well, that means that the Mets have the better team and they deserve to advance. It’s been 28 years since the Phillies won that one World Series, and to be honest, it wouldn’t surprise me if it didn’t happen again for 28 more. But…I’m hopefully optimistic.

           

Having Kids

Posted on August 21, 2008 
Filed Under Chief Blogging Officer | 1 Comment

I have one son, and I know everybody says this, but having a son was the best thing that ever happened to me in my entire life. I always wanted to have the opportunity to be a good father because my parents were divorced when I was five, and I never had a father in the house while growing up. I didn’t have any other kids because I didn’t see any reason to. I felt as though it would be hard for me to split my love and attention between multiple children.

Sometimes I see families and parents and children interacting and having a lot of fun, and you can see the love and connection that is there, and that’s a beautiful thing. But I have also seen the other side of that coin.

My friend recommended a particular dentist to me, and I have had a lot of bad experiences with dentists, so I made an appointment. I have gone to dentists that had “factory” practices, overbooking to the hilt and making you wait for an hour after your appointment time in a crowded waiting room stuffed with unruly kids, and I told her about those experiences on the phone when I was driving to my appointment. She assured me that none of that would happen this time.

I arrived at the dentist, and it was a small practice. There were just three other people in the tiny waiting room: a guy about thirty and his two kids, who were around seven and eight. They were alternately screaming, crying, rolling around on the floor, and harassing one another, snatching books and toys from each other, just a mess. It was a small space like I say and it was very, very annoying. My salvation was the promise that I wouldn’t be kept waiting after my appointment time.

The time finally came…and it went. Twenty minutes later I was still sitting there, and a woman came out of the back. It was the kids’ mom. What a relief. She walks up to her husband and says cheerily, “You’re turn!” So she took his place in the middle of the scrum, he went to his appointment, and the din got even worse under her supervision.

I stepped outside and waited out there for another fifteen minutes or so, until I was finally called into the chair. I waited for the dentist after the x-ray, and I could see the couple and their kids walking toward their car out the window.

If you haven’t noticed by now, I am a philosophical sort, and I got to wondering…why do people have kids? And why do some people have so many? Do they even know? Can they afford all of these kids? Do they have the time to give each of them the proper amount of attention?

When I evaluate why the children in the office were acting the way that they were, it is clear that they were vying for their parents’ attention. I am not saying that nobody should have more than one child, but I am saying that perhaps people should try to understand why they are having children. Is it because their parents want them to, or expect them to? I know a young couple, both of whom have demanding careers, who recently had a baby, only to put her in day care at about four weeks old. I’m not sure I understand this.

It is kind of politically incorrect to say it, but you also see people who clearly do not make a whole lot of money with six and seven and eight children in tow. I can’t see how this is good for the children, or the parents, trying to support a family of ten on a modest paycheck.

I offer no answers or suggestions, I’m just tossing out the question. I love my son and I know the value of having children, but I wonder if there would be less sadness in the world if people asked themselves why they are having a child, or a second or third or fourth or fifth one.

           

Go for a Swim!

Posted on August 20, 2008 
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With the Olympics being upon us there is a lot of athletic inspiration in the air, and Michael Phelps has certainly done his part to shine a spotlight on the sport of swimming. World-class athletes like Phelps and the other Olympians prove to us that you can take swimming to unlimited competitive levels, but the average person can also benefit a great deal by incorporating swimming into his or her active lifestyle.

I hurt my knee last summer and I couldn’t put very much weight on it for several months. I had to find a way to get some aerobic exercise, rehabilitate the leg slowly with minimal impact, and burn some calories because the injured knee resulted in a level of inactivity that I was not used to. So I joined a local gym that has a lap pool, and I started swimming for 45 minutes every night.

I found that swimming a significant distance is a total body workout. When I would get home, I’d feel that sweet sensation of fatigue from head to toe, and I slept really well. I went on a low carb diet at that time, and I lost thirty pounds of fat and gained some muscle and definition.

Because swimming is low impact on the joints, it is especially appealing to people who have certain health challenges. Pregnant women can benefit greatly from swimming, and I was reading an article over at the HealthAndFitnessBlog that mentioned the Arthritis Foundation recommending swimming and water aerobics for people who suffer from arthritis.

I was writing yesterday about efficient communication and artistic expression saving time and creating space for new ideas, and I think that swimming is a very efficient way to get a total body workout. You are getting your cardiovascular exercise simultaneous to resistance training and stretching, and when you look at world-class swimmers, their training results in what most people would consider to be the ideal physique.

But best of all, swimming is fun! What feels better than diving into a nice cool pool on a hot summer afternoon? If you do something that you like to do when you exercise, you will stick with it, and swimming regularly is something that everyone should consider.


Efficient Swimming

           

Creativity, Communication, and Brevity

Posted on August 19, 2008 
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The use of Twitter to present VCs with your business plan in 140 characters or less, as suggested by our CHO, is an interesting idea, and I have experimented with it a little bit, trying to pass along an idea that contained a good bit of information in that brief and efficient manner. Busy people may have three or four hundred emails to read every day, so if you can get their attention for a few seconds on Twitter and get your message across, it says something about the way that you think, and about the respect that you have for their time.

I have gotten to the point where I feel uncomfortable when I am not doing something productive or creative, or for that matter, two or three things that fit that description simultaneously. Since we are all so busy and time can be hard to find, it is cool to try to express yourself in a nutshell, and of course Twitter is a perfect tool for that.

This type of thinking is not exclusively the domain of the modern person who is technologically savvy and constantly on the go. The ancients understood it as well, and Haiku is a perfect example of the efficient transference of emotions, pictures, philosophies, and information. Below is a famous poem by Basho Matsuo, renowned as the first great Haiku poet:

An old silent pond…
A frog jumps into the pond,
splash! Silence again.

With this in mind, I was checking out some more modern ways of expressing yourself succinctly and elegantly, and I watched some 1 minute films the other day on You Tube. I posted a few below, check them out, and remember to keep it simple, it frees up space and allows more information to make its way around.


Anything Can Happen


The Plastic Battle


Change?

           

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