funny video

joe the plumber

I wish I worked for Saturday Night Live this week. They're job was made very easy last night when both candidates tried to outdo one another in the race to help Joe the Plumber.

If you've got a minute, do a Google news search on "Joe the Plumber" and just read the headlines.

Also, I wonder if these guys are going to get a spike in business. Or if they'll sue.

periodic laundry list

I'm definitely not using this blog in a writerly way. It's more like a newsletter for family and a handful of friends. The most trivial and mundane newsletter on earth. So, in that spirit...

Allie and I saw a great movie last night -- Ghost Town. Afterward, I said to her, "That was our kind of movie." It's a romantic comedy with interesting characters. I think I'm turning into my Uncle Pete. I used to like grim movies with violence and unhappy endings. Now I have no fortitude for violence, and I much prefer to leave the movie feeling smily and stupid. So, Pete, I recommend you and Marilyn go check this one out.

I'm a month into my first grad school class and I'm absolutely loving it. It's a lit class about autobiography. We're starting with St. Augustine's Confessions and moving forward. I'm not crazy about the primary texts -- folks didn't write as well back then as they do now, in my opinion. But I love the critical and theoretical stuff that we're reading along with it. And I like writing the papers, though I was nervous until I got my first grades that I was doing it all wrong. New form of writing for me. I think academia is the right career choice for me. Definitely a better fit than politics.

Speaking of politics, I think I last wrote about the ordinance to ban the mayor's wife from City Hall. Well, we're still battling that. Meantime, we've been getting some pretty cool things accomplished. Last week, we created two alliances with other mayors -- one a caucus of mayors from our metro area, the other an alliance with mayors from the state's largest cities. I think both of these are going to be powerful and effective initiatives. We're also gaining momentum on our initiative to create "new tools" for economic development in distressed areas of the city. Next week I'm going to a conference in Miami about economic development in the inner city. I'm pretty sure I'll pick up some good ideas there to bring back home.

My experience at City Hall has made me somewhat ambivalent about the presidential election. It's hard not to see McCain and Obama as mythic figureheads of corrupt organizations. But still, one choice is clearly better than the other, from my perspective. And it's weird to think we're on the brink of electing the first black president and I'm not super excited about it. (Obviously, I think that the prospect of Palin in the White House horrifies me.)

Haven't been able to run for weeks. I've had ankle problems. It's been so bad and chronic that I had an MRI last week. I get the results from that on Tuesday. I'm really hoping it's not a stress fracture, because that would likely mean I can't run Chicago. But this weekend it's feeling better, first time in a month or so that I have no pain to speak of. So I'm hoping I can pull it off. I won't be running the race very fast, but that's OK because Chicago Marathon appears to be as much of a festival as anything -- a 26.2 mile long party, I'm told. With 40,000 runners and two million spectators. Should be very cool.

Allie and I have another pet. Actually, it adopted us, and we don't anticipate it will be with us long. It's a great big spider named Gordy that lives on our front porch. Every night he spins a beautiful, huge net near the porch light and catches all the bugs that fly in its glow. Last night, when we got home from the movie, we stopped to admire him as he was making his way around the web, a silvery strand trailing behind. Suddenly, he darted off to the other side of the web and pounced on a little bug that got caught. It was breathtaking. The night before, I spotted a praying mantis caught in the web. Gordy was smart enough not to pounce on him. So I took my car key and broke the mantis free. I went in and bragged to Allie about my heroism and she came out to catch a peek at the little fellow. He was so cute. Just like a little alien.

We made a couple of big domestic investments last weekend at Sears. We got a dishwasher that actually washes dishes, first one I've ever owned, and a Dyson Animal. Man, the new vacuum really sucks!

space olympics

This was my favorite thing on SNL last night:

now, dance

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

My uncle Pete sent me this video. So beautiful. Fits perfectly with where I'm at.

I've had a very trying few weeks. But ultimately I think they've been valuable.

A couple of Thursdays ago, nine members of the City Council co-sponsored an ordinance that would essentially ban the mayor's wife from working at City Hall. It's a clear effort to take him out by attacking him at a spot where he's most vulnerable.

For the following week, I was consumed with stress and anxiety. I could barely think straight, wasn't sleeping well at night, fell behind on my exercise and I wasn't eating well. There were moments when I thought I might well have an anxiety attack. Finally, I decided enough was enough and I told them I needed to take a week off, which I did last week.

It wasn't easy, you can well imagine, for a person like me who is so needy of others' approval. I felt guilty for leaving them stranded during a storm.

One of my main objectives for the week, though, was to read two books by Eckhart Tolle, who is sort of an unlikely pop spirituality star. Actually, I listened to them on my iPod while I did errands and chores and such. His main message is that life can only be found in the present moment, that the past and future are illusions where we live most of our lives, building stress and unhappiness. And he offers some practical suggestions about how to stay in the moment, and let go of all the drama of regret and anxiety and fear and whatnot.

It hasn't been easy. But I'm working pretty hard on it, trying to find ways to appreciate the present, to be present in it. He talks about how there are ideally three modes of being: acceptance, enjoyment and enthusiasm. The first is for when we're in situations that are unpleasant, the second is for pleasant moments and the third is the pleasant moments aimed toward a goal or a sense of purpose.

So the video from Pete is great. It's like a visual statement of what Tolle is talking about. What better example of enjoying the moment than dancing?

deena

As the Olympics were approaching, the event I looked forward to most was the women's marathon because Deena Kastor is one of my favorite athletes. So I was shocked and deeply disappointed to see her have to drop out just three miles in because of an injury.

Here's a video where she talks about the disappointment and how she's dealing with it. It's worth watching.

new yorker

A couple of years ago, my agent told me to forget about trying to write for the New Yorker. She said it's too clicky. You have to be a real insider to get a break with them. And besides, once you get in, they're a pain to work with.

So I stopped reading it. Sort of took the fun out of it.

But this week I'm going to have to buy a copy. They've got a long article about Ryan Hall.

medals map

This is a fascinating interactive data interface. It's interesting to click through the years and watch the spread of the circles. The first thing you notice is how north-heavy it is. That's to be expected, I suppose. But then when you get into the eighties, it's remarkable how much it spreads. It seems another strong piece of evidence for the so-called flattening of the world in the age of information.

super hot

This morning I ran 18.7 miles. It was about 80 degrees at the start, and 90 or so by the time I finished.

And I learned something along the way. When your body starts running low on liquid to sweat, you get goose bumps. It's kind of like a back-up cooling system. But it's not as efficient as sweat. So, soon after they appear, you start to bonk.

That's what happened to me. At about mile 15, I hit a wall. I had to do some walking and super slow jogging to make it all the way.

Afterward, I felt completely drained.

Allie and I went to the farmers market and we could hardly stand it, it was so hot. Allie couldn't believe I'd actually gone running in such weather.

When we got home, I flopped down in front of the TV and watched shows about the making of the National Stadium and Aquatics Center in Beijing.

Allie and I spent the weekend at the Mayor's cabin in the Ozarks. Wonderful place.

One the drive home, we bought nectarines, sweet corn, watermelon, muskmelon, zucchini and big fat sweet blackberries.

When we got home, we had a dozen or so ripe tomatoes waiting for us on the vine. Today, I picked four cucumbers. My cucumber plant has so far survived. This is a first for my garden. Every year the cucumbers and zucchinis die. This year, only the zucchini did. So now we have delicious cucs.

Tonight was my speed work out. We did four 800s, then four 400s, then another 800. Midway through, it started pouring rain. I'm the only man in my speed group. Tonight, all but one of the women beat me on just about every interval.

On Saturday, I ran in the Ozarks. Seven miles on a very hilly dirt road. It was absolutely beautiful, but hard.

As part of my current fascination with Iceland, I bought a couple of albums by Icelandic bands. Some of you might find Amiina and Apparat Organ Quartet.

It's raining like crazy outside, with great big thunder.

Saturday was great. I ran 16 miles in the morning. It was a hot day and a hilly course. But all weekend I felt like a total stud.

That afternoon, Allie and I took a drive into the country to pick blueberries and buy corn and peaches and buffalo meat. I didn't want to pick the berries, but I wound up loving it. It was a peaceful and beautiful activity. We came home with four pounds.

We bought the corn from three kids in a pick-up truck. There were two girls and a boy, ans the girls were quick to point out that they'd been there all day, but the boy hadn't. I said that boys are lazy, and the girl nodded emphatically. "Especially this one," she said.

At the buffalo farm we met a jack russell terrier. He was a little chubby, but he came right up to us and demanded a belly rub. As we exited the little store they had on the farm, he went running over to a couple of bison and started barking at them like he was boss. He was showing off for us.

Last night I did my third speed workout. I'm in the 4 group, which means I'm right in the middle. We did hill sprints and then quarter repeats. I was worried about the workout, but I hung right in there, knocking off three quarters at about 1:41 each. Afterward, and all day today, I've felt strength and healthiness. My leg muscles feel more powerful, my posture a little straighter, and each breath I take feels thick and sweet. It's such a cool thing to do, I think.

Being in the group is interesting. It's like being in high school cross country or track again, except we're all grown-ups with jobs. Everybody's got a different goal they're working toward, but we're all real serious about it.

While I'm running I feel like I'm an elite athlete. I know I'm not running as fast as one, and that I certainly don't look like I'm world-class, but it's kind of like playing air guitar to Jimi Hendrix -- I'm going through roughly the same motions Ryan Hall does when he's up with the front pack, so it's easy to slip a little into Walter Mitty mode.

But then... I'm doing quarters at 1:41. And I'm sucking wind at the end of each one. When I was 15, I ran a 10k at a faster pace. A much faster pace. So, it's easy to slip into the other direction, and beat up on myself for not sticking with track and cross country in high school and college. For not pushing my body to its limit when it was in its prime to see just how good of an athlete I could have been.

Oh well. Can't do nothing about that.

In other news, Allie and I have decided to go to Iceland next summer. I've wanted to go there ever since I saw something on PBS about the incredible music scene they have there.

So, for the past week or so I've been doing a lot of research on the weird little island and becoming more and more fascinated. On our trip, we are definitely going to go here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

That's right. How could we possibly pass up a chance to visit the Icelandic Phallological Museum?

A little late on the update this week...

Allie's birthday was yesterday. She got treated right this year. On Saturday, the day was all hers. We went shopping at Anthropologie and Barnes and Noble. We had dinner at her favorite restaurant. And we saw Hellboy at the drive-in.

On her actual birthday, she got three months of yoga and we went to the water park.

My sense is she's pretty ding-dang happy.

Last night I did a two-mile time trial. I finished in 14:55. I feel pretty good about it. I didn't really know what to expect. It was about 90 degrees, and I'd already been in the sun all day at the water park. It was very hard. By the end, I was completely winded and I thought I was going to puke. But I didn't.

According to various race prediction formulas, I should be able to run a marathon in the 3:45 to 4:10 range. That seems a little high to me. But given a full six months of solid, injury-free training, maybe it's possible.

Something tells me I won't be breaking four hours in Chicago, though, But we'll see.

In the garden, my zucchini plant died once again. It fell victim to those damned bugs that get it at the base of the stem. I thought I might have had it licked this year. Gloria told me to spread aluminum foil on the ground. Didn't work. I'm going to thoroughly research the issue this winter and give it one last try next year.

Work is going pretty good. If we can get this regional transit deal on the November ballot it'll be quite a coup. If you're following the issue in the paper, it doesn't look to promising. But from my vantage point there's still a reasonably good shot. At any rate, it'll be on the ballot next year, which is still a huge win for Mark's administration.

Allie and I are going to Iceland next year. We're already starting to plan. I got a good guide book with lots of pretty pictures. I don't know what's more fun -- travel or thinking about traveling.

Just a little more than three weeks until the Olympics. Here's a good article about why you should be a track and field fan. It has a great quote from Anthony Anthony Famiglietti.

After his win in Eugene, he said his goal was Olympic bronze. Not gold? "There's going to be people out there who cheat," he said. "I live in reality. But maybe I can sneak in and steal it from one of those dirty jerks and get the bronze."

My favorite!

office supply

I need one of these:

fam

I'm starting to get really stoked about the Olympics. The last time I was into the games was 1996. I didn't watch them at all in 2000 and 2004. This year I've actually got favorites that I'm pulling for.

One of my idols right now is Anthony Famiglietti, who'll be representing the U.S. in the steeplechase. He's just completely bad ass and totally cool.

Check out his website. Be sure to click on the "RUN LIKE HELL" link and watch the trailers for his movie.

If that doesn't get you fired up for your afternoon run, I don't know what will.

running and biking and clean livin'

Another week rolls by.

It was pretty slow at work, what with the holiday and all. Have to say I prefer it when it's hectic.

Allie and I took it pretty easy on the fourth. We barbecued and hung around the house.

We both made a pact this morning to improve our diets.

The lure of crappy foods has a fairly strong hold on both of us, so we're going to tag team it and eat more fruits and vegetables and the like. Which is convenient because we'll soon have a steady supply coming in from the backyard.

For me, diet is one of the missing pieces in my quest for a Boston Qualifier. I've been consistent with the training, joined a running club, been doing strength training, stretching before and after every run, been working real hard on my form, I'm going to be starting speed training this Tuesday.

I even got a stability ball chair for work so I can have better posture.

But I still basically eat whatever I feel like eating. That means several trips to Quiznos each week for lunch -- large tuna sandwich with cheese, bag of chips and large cookie. When I go to restaurants, I tend to go for the fatty meats. When I grill, I tend to do the same.

So now the plan is to eat more "real foods," as my new running coach calls it. Fruits, vegetables, nuts, lean meats, whole grains. That kind of stuff.

Hopefully it'll make me more energetic during the day, better fueled for runs and, above all, help me to lose the love handles I've acquired (which really freak me out, after a life of unearned skinniness.)

Speaking of Boston, I had a dream this week that I qualified. It was amazing. I was there at the beginning of the race and as the crowd took off I felt overwhelmed with joy. I was crying I was so happy.

It was a great dream. But it kind of spooked me out, too.

I've been watching the Olympic trials for track and field. I was happy to see Kara Goucher qualify in both the 10,000 and 5,000, because she went to CU.

The other cool thing was watching a 16-year-old set a national high school record for the 1500 and qualify for the finals.

Tonight's big deal event will be the men's 1500. I'm really hoping Gabe Jennings makes it.

I've started watching the Tour de France, too.

I wasn't going to, because I've become disenchanted by the recent doping scandals, but I got sucked in by the beautiful shots of the bikes rolling through the French countryside.

I was happy to see that the sport is trying to reinvent itself. Versus, which is broadcasting the event, has a promo ad that shows the scandals in reverse -- Floyd the Doping Mennonite has his yellow jersey removed, Jan the German doper rides backward and to a stop, and so on, while some song goes on about starting over again.

And there's a new American-based team that was originally called Team High Road that subjects itself to extra drug testing and is committed to ethics and all that. They're now called Team Columbia. So I'll pull for them. And if they get caught in a scandal, I'm going to swear off the sport forever. (I'm still a little bitter about that Mennonite guy.)

I guess that's it for now...

another week

Continuing in the habit of posting a laundry list once a week...

I had a great week.

At work, we started off with a totally corny press event that was one of the most successful of our term. To announce the passage of a new ordinance to limit the number of metal plates on city streets, we had the mayor hook one of them up to a crane and give the signal to yank it. (For those of you who don't live here: KC uses metal plates to temporarily cover utility cuts. They're all over the place and they're one of the things that annoy citizens most.) All the TV stations were there, several print reporters and a radio crew. In the paper we got front page of the metro and a glowing editorial.

Then, on Wednesday, we announced a new appointment to the Parks Board. The appointee, Meg Conger, was a great choice, and we again got real good coverage of our on-location press event.

It feels like we're getting good at this stuff. And we have a lot more to come in the coming months.

Allie caught my cold and has been bogged down with it all week. The only good thing about thing is that it's given me the opportunity to serve her a lot, and I've been more than happy to do that.

Despite her cold, she's been working. One of her assignments was to write about the people who brought the Garden Weasel to America. I had no idea that these people are in Kansas City. I was so thrilled when she told me this that I could hardly stand it. But I also felt guilty because just a couple weeks ago I went to Home Depot specifically to buy a Garden Weasel. But all they had was an impostor, the Garden Hound Dog. To assuage my guilt, I immediately got online to buy a Garden Weasel hat. It arrived on Friday, and it is now my official gardening uniform.

I started my running group yesterday. I ran 10 miles and it was fantastic. This is going to turn out to be one of the best things I've ever done. When I came home from the first run, Allie said I was positively glowing. Soon they will be starting mid-week speed training. I'm so excited!

The garden is in great shape. We're having troubles with our camera, so I haven't been posting pictures. I should get that fixed this week, shouldn't I? Most of the tomato plants have reached the tops of their cages, and I have little green fruits on several of them. I'm just now pulling up a second batch of radishes, which means we need to make hummus for sandwiches. Should have beans soon. Peppers appear to be a ways off.

Mostly what I love is to get lost in the work of it. I'm just so happy when I have on my iPod and good podcast going and I'm out there pulling weeds and fussing with plants and stuff. I think it's what life is all about.

My back is feeling a lot better. I appreciate the uncle advice. I'm going to check into both things.

Until next week...

odds and ends

Allie got me a book for my birthday called The How of Happiness. It had some good information in there about ruminating and overthinking. These are two things that I do often and they tend to make me unhappy. This book had some good suggestions about how to stop doing this. I got so into the whole concept that I tracked down a book by the leading scholar on the issue and bought it, despite the title.

Work is a real challenge for me in this area. Seems there's always something for my mind to chew on, usually a resentment against somebody who's working against us in some way or another. Lately I've had intense resentments against the local paper. It's absolutely astonishing how biased they are. I mean, I always knew it. As a reporter at the Pitch their particular slant annoyed me to no end. But now that I'm working for a concern that is on the unfavorable end of their bias, it really boils my blood sometimes.

So, yeah. Overthinking. I often think that the reason why I'm in this job is to overcome my hangups.

Haven't been able to run for most of the last week because I came down with a cold. I finally emerged from it today, and set out to spend the whole day in the yard. Got a lot done until I was yanking on a vine and I felt a sudden sharp stab in my back. The pain was so intense that I couldn't really move, so I sort of crumpled down on the ground, rolled into a sort of crawl position and then after a while managed to find an angle for my back to where I could stand up. I can move around a bit more now but it's still pretty bad. Not sure what to do. I've been seeing a sports chiropractor, so I might go see him. I don't have any doctor that I like or trust. Besides the pain it sucks because I really wanted to knock off a long list of yard stuff. Oh well. I guess I have reached the stage in manhood when my back bill is due. It happens to most of us, don't it?

This week I'm going to join a running group. It costs more than I thought it would, but I think it'll be worth it.

faster

I'm definitely getting faster. I ran four miles last night, doing a run/walk plan of 30 seconds per half mile. Over all I came in under ten minutes a mile, and for the running sections, I ranged from 9:45 to 9:05, according to my Garmin.

At work, I interviewed a prospective employee who ran middle distances in college. His PR for the marathon is 2:32. He said he could get me down to a 3:30.

Of course, folks will say anything for a good job, won't they?

super mayor

I was in Washington D.C. this week with the mayor for an event hosted by the Brookings Institution. While there, the mayor appear appeared on C-SPAN's Washington Journal and testified before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs.

The Senate affair was a trip. He testified on a panel of mayors that included Michael Bloomberg of New York.

Before the meeting, we waited in an ante room outside the committee chambers. The mayor chatted with Shirley Franklin, mayor of Atlanta, and John Peyton, mayor of Jacksonville. Then a few senators showed up, and finally Bloomberg arrived with his entourage of six or seven staffers. As soon as he appeared, it was time to go.

They opened the door to the chambers, and there was a wall of photographers clicking away -- all of them there for Bloomberg. They kept their cameras trained on the super mayor as he made his was around the room to his seat and while he testified their shutters fired nonstop.

Mayor Franklin spoke after him and about three of the photographers took some pictures of her. Then for Mayor Peyton I think one took a couple shots. Mayor Funkhouser was last, and I was focused on what he was saying so I couldn't tell if anyone took a picture. But if one had, I'm sure it would've been just one or two.

All this was very interesting, because just two days earlier we had been informed by a reporter at our hometown paper that no one would be covering the event. Upon hearing this, my colleague Kendrick called an editor to complain.

Afterward we got a Lexis-Nexis tally of coverage for the event. There was a nice big story from the Atlanta paper, and an even longer one from AP, in which Funk got the top quote and the kicker quote. But when we got home and opened our hometown paper the next day we found a six-inch story buried in the B section -- not even a quote in it.

The whole trip was surreal. In DC, he was highly revered. At this Brookings event, for instance, he was asked to give the closing thoughts. And this was no small thing. It was the largest event in the history of the institution. After his testimony before Senate he got tons of praise from the senate aides and the lobbyists who were all hustling around the scene.

What's more, everyone out there was saying the same stuff the mayor's been saying in KC. They were all talking about the need for regional cooperation on transit, the need for increased investment in infrastructure, the need to start acting strategically and to stop playing politics.

But back home, he's considered a loser by the political insiders -- which includes the folks at the paper. So frustrating. So strange.\

Funny thing, though. Bloomberg was widely detested his first year or so in office. He joked about this while testifying. Referring to how tough it is to be a mayor, he said something like, "If you want to ban smoking, close fire stations, take over the school district and have a parade on Staten Island. All of which turned out to be very popular. So what do I know?"

So maybe our trials are all just par for the course.

ridiculous

Check out this absurd stuff.