Roseyland

I worked out tonight. Please… Please.. hold your applause. I want to be the type of person that works out regularly, and I manage to do so for months at a time, but I also manage to go months without working out. Let’s take a trip back in time. When I was in high school, I was on the swim team. I used to swim fairly intensely for 2 hours a day 5 days a week for 10 months of the year. I was in great shape. When I think of how many calories a day I must have burned then versus what I burn now, I cry a little.

In college, I didn’t work out much, but I was still fairly active. For one, I walked all over campus every day, and I rode my bike a little. I gained a little weight in college, but honestly, I probably needed to gain that weight. After college, things got a little worse. In grad school, I spent more and more time in front of a computer, and when I had to start cooking for myself, I ate less and less healthy. At one point, I weighed myself and found out that I had gained 40 pounds since high school. This was a little alarming, so I started going to the rec center on campus, and after a couple months I got myself back to a healthy weight.

Then I entered the working world. My job requires virtually no physical activity whatsoever. Unless you count typing. The most exercise I am forced to get is the two and a half minute walk from my car to my desk. Yes, I have timed it. When I first moved to St. Louis, I joined the Edward Jones YMCA, which is awesome. Seriously, if you live in Maryland Heights, you should check it out. When I moved to Brentwood, I joined the YMCA just down the street, but it wasn’t as nice, and I stopped going. This led to a long period of no exercise. Then a couple years ago, they opened a fitness center at work. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s very convenient. I got into a good habit of working out regularly for nearly a year, but then I got distracted, and I quit.

The problem is, the gym just isn’t fun. You end up doing the same thing every day, and day after day it gets old. I have a new plan though, and I’m hoping I’ll be able to stick with this plan a little longer. Here it is:

• 10 minutes on the elliptical machine doing some form of interval training. This means you go fast, then slow, then fast, then slow.
• Around 15 minutes on the weight machines. I’ll do 1 set of 12 reps on 7 different machines. I’ll alternate which machines i use on different days.
• 10 more minutes of interval training on the elliptical machine.

This is different from my old workout, where I would spend 30 minutes on weight machines, and then 30 minutes on the elliptical at a constant speed. I’m hoping the new plan will be faster paced, and thus less boring. I’ve heard that it’s better to split up your cardio, so that your pulse is elevated during your entire workout. I’ve also heard that doing some form of interval training for your cardio burns more calories than going at a constant speed.

I tried this new plan tonight, and it definitely went faster. It was nice not having to drudge through 30 minutes on the elliptical machine, and I have to admit, the interval training felt more intense. Plus, it was a lot more fun. The biggest benefit to this new plan is that I’m in and out of the gym in less than an hour. This makes it much more likely that I’ll stick with it, and more likely that I’ll start up again if I miss a few weeks. Wish me luck. And, um, you should probably get back to working out too. You can’t fool me, I know how many hours a day you sit there reading blogs. Go for a walk.

Wikimedia Commons : ChrisnHouston

Yesterday I blogged about what I would change in the U.S. Government if I could. Today, I’m going to talk about the answer a lot of other people would give. Eliminating the Electoral College. In case you don’t know, and seriously, you should know, but in case you don’t, the Electoral College is how the United States elects a President and Vice President. Each State is given one elector for each Senator and Representative in the House. Washington D.C. get’s three electors. There are 538 electors in total. Each State decides how to split up their electoral votes depending on the popular vote in that State. Most states use a winner take all system, where whichever candidate wins the popular vote wins all of the State’s electoral votes. So, if a candidate wins a large state with a slim margin in the popular vote, he or she still takes home a large number of electoral votes. This is how George Bush was able to lose the popular vote by 500,000 in the 2000 election, but still win more electoral votes and thus win the election.

Many people believe that George Bush stole the election in 2000 because of our flawed electoral college system. This isn’t really fair though, because candidates campaign to win the most electoral votes. Had George Bush been campaigning to win the popular vote, it is entirely possible that he would have done so. Of course Al Gore wasn’t trying to win the popular vote either, and yet he managed to do it. Regardless, the point is, we don’t know what would have happened in a popular vote election.

I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who didn’t think the Electoral College should be eliminated. It’s just that it takes a constitutional amendment to change it, and it hardly ever makes a difference anyways, so why bother? The Electoral College does have it’s good points. It is supposed to protect the rights of small states. Which I think is a fair argument. There is a lot of group think going on in elections. I think most people vote for who their peers vote for, rather than making up their own mind. Just because some groups have more people in them, doesn’t make their opinions any more valid.

All in all, if it were up to me, I would probably eliminate the Electoral College. It doesn’t actually do much to protect the rights of small states, and to a small extent, it undermines the credibility of our democracy. It is interesting to think about how Presidential elections would change if we went to a popular vote system. Under our current system, candidates spend a vast majority of their time in a few key swing states, while a lot of other states are completely ignored. If we went to a popular vote system, I imagine that candidates would spend most of their time in major population centers, and the more rural areas would be ignored. This would probably be an improvement, since candidates would have to pay attention to a lot more of the country.

Wow, you have no idea how boring this blog post is. Oh wait, yes you do, you just read it. Why didn’t you stop and do something better with your time. I’m sorry. You have no idea how many times I stopped while writing this and thought, oh God, this is so boring, just post a Haiku or something. Oh well, at least I checked another NaBloPoMo day off. I’ll post pictures of my cat tomorrow. Everybody loves cat pictures.

Once upon a time, I was senior in High School. As a senior, I had to take a class called American Government. In my high school, everyone was required to take American Government as a senior, which sucked. The nice thing about senior year was that different types of people had self selected themselves onto different paths. Some of us were taking AP classes and applying to college, and some of us were doing other things. American government was the exception to this though, because it threw us all back into one big collective high school student pot. Wonderful. Do I come off snobbish in this paragraph? Oh well, just calling it like I vaguely remember it.

None of what I just said is important. What is important is that in American Government, we learned all about the constitution and the legislative process. At the end of the class, our teacher asked us what change we would make to our government, if we could. My answer at the time was pretty lame. I think I said that I would give Washington D.C. a senator and house representative, since D.C. had no representation in the U.S. congress, which does seem unfair.

Today I have a better answer. Prepare yourself, are you ready to digest my radical ideology??? Wait for it… If I could change one thing about the United States government, I would eliminate the primary election system. For all national elections, there would be a run-off election in May. In this election, every voter would vote among every candidate. There would be no partisan elections. Then, the top two candidates from the run-off election would move on to the general election in November.

This solves a few problems. First, we no longer have the third party candidate problem. I hate the fact that people are forced to choose between the candidate they love, and the candidate they just like, but has a realistic shot of being elected. Under this new plan, you can vote for whomever you want in the run-off election to let your voice be heard. Then, in the general election, you choose the remaining candidate you like the most. If the remaining candidates are two republicans, fine. If they are two democrats, fine. If they are two independents, fine.

Another benefit to this plan, in my mind at least, is that it gives the most power to the moderate majority of America. Under the current primary system, the most conservative segment of society chooses one candidate, and the most progressive segment chooses the other. Then the rest of us are left to choose between two extremes in the general election. If we had a run-off election system, we could choose between two different but moderate candidates. This would do wonders for our sanity.

To be fair, I think our system works well, it could just be better. In my probably biased view, most Democratic candidates are actually fairly moderate. The Republicans on the other hand, ehh, not so much. John McCain is fairly moderate, and would have been a decent President. Sarah Palin on the other hand? She’s a whack job. I should probably say something more diplomatic, but sorry, that’s how I see it. I feel like today’s moderate Republicans are being held hostage by the tea partiers. This is unfortunate, and I believe our country would benefit from a system that prevents these unhealthy relationships.

So, what do you think? Am I crazy? I mean because of this blog post, not because of anything else you may have read (or heard, or witnessed). If I could change another thing about the American government, I would probably eliminate the electoral college. Which is an interesting thought experiment. How would U.S. elections change if there was no electoral college? Maybe I’ll blog about that tomorrow.

Flickr : John-Morgan

Do you see this picture of a cute animal known as a squirrel? They are evil. There is this tree that towers over my bedroom, and currently the tree is producing massive amounts of acorns. The squirrels are delighting in running through the tree and knocking the acorns onto the roof above my bedroom. The other night it was so loud the cat and I had to search the condo at 3am to ensure no one had broken in. The next day, I was watching the squirrels in the tree, and I swear one of them threw an acorn at me. I used to like squirrels. I used to think they were cute. Now I know the truth, they are evil, and they are out to torment me.

I always have trouble coming up with Christmas gift ideas for myself. What can I say? I have everything I need. Well, at least I thought I did, until I came across this Facebook fan page. This year for Christmas, I want high speed rail service between St. Louis and Chicago. By high speed, I mean 220 mph with a two hour trip time. No need to wrap it. You can find more information at the Midwest High Speed Rail Association page.

I’ve be a fan of all forms of rail transportation for a long time. I love big cities where you can take the subway/metro/L/tube anywhere. Few things would make me happier than being able to take the Metrolink to work. I also recently took a train from London to Paris. You might have read about it here. It was awesome. So much better than an airplane for regional travel.

A great annoyance of mine is that Chicago is so close, yet so far away. It’s a 5 hour drive, which is just a little too long, plus traffic and parking in Chicago is hell. Chicago is only a 1 hour flight, but you have to leave for the airport 2 hours ahead of time, then fly in a cramped airplane, then wait for your luggage, and then take a 45 minute taxi or L ride downtown. Door to door, traveling from St. Louis to Chicago by air takes about 4 hours. Boooooo!

A train to Chicago would be perfect. You would only have to leave for the train station 1 hour (at most) before the departure time, the trip would take 2 hours, and since your luggage stays with you and the train takes you right downtown, once you are there, you are there. A three hour trip. Okay, so I might have idealized the situation a little bit, but even if the train isn’t that fast, the experience of riding a train is so much better. You can get up and walk around, the food is better, the food selection is better, the view is better. Dude, the train is awesome.

Okay, so now you know what I want for Christmas. I don’t ask much of you, so please just get me what I want this year, okay? Also, I’ll be needing a gift idea from you. I’m not psychic you know.

This is weird, I’m blogging from a coffee shop. Kayak’s Coffee house at Skinker & Forest Park Parkway to be exact. There are people all around me. I’m not used to having people around me when I write. I’m pretty sure they are all watching me and judging me. Somebody just laughed. I think it’s because she read that sentence I just wrote about people watching me. How can she tell what I’m writing from the other side of the coffee shop? She must have super powers. I should probably only write nice things about her.

I have a problem with coffee houses on warm days. I always want an iced tea when it’s warm, but you can’t order an iced tea at a coffee house. I mean you can, but they don’t just have tea, they have like 10 different kinds of speciality teas. I don’t want any of that crap, I want plain old black iced tea in at least a 32 ounce container. I ordered an iced tea today and I got 16 ounces of some type of green tea citrus something. It sucks. I don’t think it has any caffeine in it. What’s the point of iced tea without caffeine?

Hey, this blogging in public thing is going okay. I don’t think the other coffee house patrons are judging me as much anymore. It must be because my writing is so awesome. Thanks guys. I wish I could take a picture, but there are these three college girls right in my line of view. I don’t want them to think that I’m taking their picture. It would suck to be that guy. You should really come by Kayak’s sometime and see it though. It’s very cool, it has a mountain log cabin feeling to it, and they have Tibetan prayer flags hanging from the ceiling. I love me some Tibetan prayer flags. They also used to serve s’mores. I don’t know if they still do though, I can’t see them on the menu. I wish Kayak’s had existed when I was at WashU, I probably would have spent a lot of time here doing homework with a couple other guys.

Last night was a good night. Nebraska beat Oklahoma in college football and health care reform passed in the house. I’m kind of embarrassed, because I though Oklahoma had only lost to Texas and was ranked in the top 10. Apparently they had lost three times and were actually ranked like 20th. So while it was nice to see Nebraska beat a ranked team and their only true rival (sorry Missouri & Colorado), it isn’t as big of a deal as I thought it was. Health care passing in the house was nice too. No, the bill isn’t perfect, and there is still a long ways to go before this whole ordeal is over, but this is the most progress we’ve ever made, so that’s good. I spent a lot of time switching between college football and C-SPAN last night. Never done that before.

Okay, I’m out of food and drink. I’m not sure what the unwritten coffee house rules are, but doesn’t some bouncer come and throw you out when you are done with your food and/or drink? No? Hmm… Well I’m tired of sitting here anyways. Only 22 post left. I’m over half way through being half way through. Hurray!

A while ago, I tried to learn French. I failed. Mostly because French is hard, but also because it requires more than a 2 week commitment. In the process of trying to learn French, I looked for several easy ways out. I figured that if I listened to French music and watched French TV shows, maybe I would learn French by osmosis, or immersion, or something like that. It didn’t work, but I did find some fascinating French YouTube videos. Today, I’m going to share three of them with you. Lucky lucky you.

First up is Yelle. Yelle is a French electropop singer. I can’t say that I’m really into “electropop”, but Yelle’s music is strangely entrancing. Here is a video of Yelle singing Je Veux Te Voir (I Want To See You) at the Knitting Factory in NYC. People often ask how the French stay so thin. Judging from this video, I think it’s because they jump a lot. FYI, the lyrics to this song are pretty dirty, but you’ll never know, unless you speak French or click on that lyrics link I just provided.

Along with Yelle, I found Alizée. Alizée is a more traditional pop singer. Her music isn’t as strangely addicting as Yelle’s, but it’s very pretty and soothing. It sounds so French. Perhaps because it’s in French. Also, Alizée is beautiful. She is what I would describe as girlfriend hot. She’s attractive, but she still has the illusion of attainability. Attainability is hot. Anyways, here is a video of Alizée singing J’en ai Marre (I’m fed up). You can view the translated lyrics here. One weird thing about French, even after you translate it into English, it still doesn’t make much sense.

Finally, a cute little French girl telling a fairy tale. I’m not usually a fan of cute kids doing cute things, but if they are speaking French, well, not even I can resist. One great thing about this video is that it has english subtitles. I now know how to say hippopotamus, giraffe, and crocodile in French. Woo Hoo! Now if only I could find a video of cats speaking French, that would be awesome.

That is all, I have Husker football to watch. See you tomorrow.

I love Google Earth and Google Street View. You can pretty much walk the streets of any city in the World without leaving your couch. The more I can do from my couch the better. Today, I’m going to take you on a tour of everywhere I have lived via Google Earth. Yes, I know there are addresses on these pictures, but nobody I know lives in these places today, so stalk away.

As far as I know, this is the first place I ever lived. It’s a condo in Lincoln, Nebraska. My Dad actually lived here until just a few months ago, and I have spent many summers and holiday breaks in this condo.

My parents got divorced when I was three or four. For awhile, I lived with my Mom in an apartment, but I have no idea where that was. Then, when I was in kindergarten, we lived in this house. I’m amazed I was able to find it, but it was actually fairly easy. I remember that my aunt lived in the basement of this house for some time. She would tell me ghost stories about a ghost named VooDoo, and then I would have nightmares.

My Mom remarried when I was 5, and my Mom, Stepdad, and I lived in this house when I was in first grade. I remember that it was near a drive-in movie. I could see movies from my front yard. I couldn’t hear them, but I could see them.

After first grade, we moved to Edmond, Oklahoma. We lived in the duplex apartment with the red car in front of it. This was a semi-fun place to live. I spent a lot of time riding my bike and playing in the wooded area towards the bottom-left of the picture. I remember catching horny toads and playing in red dirt. Oklahoma had lots of red dirt. I also remember the people in Oklahoma being a little weird. I personally don’t think I’d ever live there again.

Then in third grade, we moved to Grand Junction, Colorado, where we lived in this apartment complex for the first year. This was awesome for a kid. This neighborhood was called the Ridges, and it was very hilly and rocky. I used to climb on these rocks a lot. I scrapped many knees here. There were also lots of cactuses, and I put my hand in several of them.

In fourth grade, we moved to this house in Grand Junction, Colorado. This is where I lived until I left for college. There were not as many plants in front of the house when I lived here, but the rock yard was there. The Colorado river was near by and I used to ride my bike down there all the time. I also played a lot of Nintendo in this house.

After high school, I went to Doane College in Crete, Nebraska. I lived in the Freese hall my freshman and sophomore years, which is the dorm on the left. Freese was a co-ed dorm and Doane had a beautiful campus. Notice the lake and trees. It’s pretty.

During my junior and senior years, I lived in Colonial Hall with seven other guys from my fraternity. Colonial was made up of quads, which are four dorm rooms with a shared living and bathroom. Good times. I wish I could say more, but I’d rather leave some things undocumented. Right now my quad-mates are thinking, “Like what? the time you stayed in to do homework when we went to the bar?”. Yes, exactly. Nobody needs to know these things.

After Doane, I got my engineering degree at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. I was at WashU for three semesters, and I lived in the Millbrook apartments during this time. I did a lot of studying here. Not much else.

After WashU, I went to grad school at the University of Nebraska. So we’ve come full circle back to Lincoln, Nebraska. This is the apartment complex I lived in. I had a studio apartment, which was small, but suited me well. I get a kick out of the efficient use of space.

After grad school, I moved to St. Louis, Missouri and lived in this apartment complex. These apartments were nice, but I got tired of paying rent, so I bought a condo and moved out.

This is the neighborhood I live in today. I can’t show you my actual condo, because you’d probably stalk me and eat my brains. Not cool.

Well that was fun, it’s amazing how fast that went by. It’s like my life just flashed before my eyes. Am I dead? Nope, still here, few! If you liked this post, you might also like this post with various pictures of me over the ages. See you tomorrow for another fun filled NaBloPoMo post!

Here at Roseyland we pride ourselves on being a bastion of high brow intellectual discourse. Tonight we will be engaging in a thinking game colloquially referred to as Kill Fuck Marry. (No, that isn’t an appropriate use of the word colloquially, but it felt right, deal with it). This is where you are given a list of three people and you have to choose one to kill, one to fuck, and one to marry. Tonight’s lists of killing, fucking, or marrying candidates are brought to us by Matt of Doane College and Delta Kappa Pi fame. Matt was nice enough to propose this game in a comment to my last blog post. Let’s begin!

A). Marisa Miller, Heidi Klum, Jessica Biel

Okay, look. I don’t read People, or US Weekly, or watch TMZ. I’m also horrible at names and faces. Who in the hell is Marisa Miller? Let me do a Google image search… Oh dear god. Wow. Good for her. This (possibly NSFW) is nice. And this. And this. Yeah, um, I’m gonna fuck her.

So that leaves Heidi Klum and Jessica Biel. I know Heidi because she a judge on that runway show that has nothing to do with airplanes. She’s quite fit as well. (Psssst… “fit” is British for looks fuckable. You may now consider yourself cultured). I know that I know Jessica Biel, but I can’t seem to bring up her image in my mind. Let’s do another Google image search… Jessica’s nice, but not my thing. I’ll kill her and marry Heidi. I think I’d enjoy the German efficiency Heidi would bring to our union.

Next List.

B). Lady GaGa, Kathy Griffin, Scary Spice

I think I preferred the last list, can we just do it again? No? All-right. I’m actually somewhat of a Kathy Griffin fan. I love here Life on the D List show on Bravo. I also like Lady GaGa’s song Just Dance. It’s a good song to get you going on the way to work in the morning. I don’t know much about Scary Spice, but I do remember the Spice Girls.

I’m going to marry Kathy. An odd choice given that she’s the oldest of the three, but she’s funny and I think it would be cool to hang out with her on a daily basis. Plus her last husband was kind of a dick, so she deserves a good guy like me. I’m going to kill Lady Gaga and fuck Scary Spice. Lady Gaga just seems a little out of control. I don’t do out of control. Supposedly Scary Spice was named “Scary” because she has a take charge up front personality. That could make for a unique bedroom experience. I’d like to try it out.

Next List.

C). Rosie O’Donnell, Barbara Streisand, Amy Winehouse

I have to kill Rosie. I actually like Rosie when she doesn’t let her mouth get too far ahead of her brain, but that never last very long. My biggest issue with Rosie is this. I’ll spare you the gory details, but basically Rosie did her own little expert structural engineering analysis and determined that the U.S. government must have been responsible for 9-11. I don’t do crazy, so I’m afraid Rosie has to go.

Every time I see Amy Winehouse, I think she’s a drag queen. An attractive drag queen, but still a drag queen. Also, isn’t she some type of raging drug addict? Or has she recovered? Either way, I can’t marry her. I could fuck her though, so I will. I guess that means I’m marrying Barbara. She older, but super rich. I can deal with that.

Well that was fun. Feel free to critique my selections. Remember, we are all about intelligent discourse here at Roseyland. Also, I should warn you, this blog post uses the word “fuck” a lot. This is out of character for me, but the nature of the game Kill Fuck Marry makes it necessary. If such language offends you, please don’t read this post.

This post is kind of a cop out, but if I”m going to stick with this NaBloPoMo thing, I’m going to have to take the easy way out a few times. Since starting NaBloPoMo (a whole 3 days ago), I’ve been frantically trying to think of things to blog about. In my first year of blogging, I wrote 64 post. In the next 26 days, I have to write 26 post. That’s a 571.875% increase in my posting rate. I know what you are thinking. Isn’t it a 570.3125% increase? No! you are forgetting that 2008 was a leap year. Silly you. Anyways, here is my list of ideas so far:

• Conversations with Nate Dogg
• The Ramblings of a Mad Man
• Earl and the Ninja Duck (A Children’s Story)
• The History of Earl (Cat Pictures)
• Everywhere I have lived via Google Street View
• Self Driving Cars and Virtual Bubbles
• Staying Positive Amidst all the Crazy
• My Obsession Love Fondness of Lily Allen
• The Self Aware Universe
• Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah (Book Review)
• Commentary on some random news article of the day
• Christmas in London
• Teleportation Thought Experiment
• Countries I Would Add to Epcot
• The Wine Cube
• Remodeling my Bathroom
• Tour of My Condo
• Places I’d like to go
• NaBloPoMo - Looking Back (My last NaBloPoMo post)
• ???

That is 19 potential posts. I need 7 more. Any ideas? Anything on the list you like? don’t like? Leave a comment. I love comments.