Sunday, August 30, 2009
My First Triathalon
I completed my first triathlon yesterday. It was a fund raiser for the UNO swim team, women only, non-competitive, non-timed, "easy", just do it for fun and to say you did it, triathlon. Well I did it and it was fun! The swim was 100 yrds in a lake. It was way harder than I thought it would be and kicked my butt. Then we biked. I spent ALL day Wed getting my bike ready to ride. I took it for a test spin and realized I think its been 3 yrs since I rode a bike. On the bike you had a choice to bike 2, 4 or 6 miles. My goal was to bike at least 4 which I did. The run/walk was 1.5mi I made it the whole way and ran most of it. It was really fun time with good friends and I'm glad did it. Thanks to some walking and a great husband who gave me a massage last night I'm not even that soar today.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
New Birds
I saw two new birds this week. It seems lately that new life birds fall into two categories (outside of birding trips anyway since they have their own unique dynamic) and my two birds illustrate the two categories very nicely.
The Target Bird: My first new bird this week was a Sedge Wren. I went looking for it. I planned to see it, I knew where it should, when it should be there, what it looked like and tried to imagine what it sounded like. It was my target. New birds like this can be excited and incredibly frustrating because no matter how much you plan and prepare sometimes you just don't find what you went looking for. This time I did and I was very happy to check another must see in Nebraska bird off my list. After you bird the same area for a long time this usually becomes the only new birds, but not always.
The Accidental Lifer: My second new bird was a Least Tern. I was canoeing with the youth in our ward. We were floating down the Platte river, and on a wimp I took my binoculars. I figure if we were floating down the middle of the Platte maybe I could see a piping plover. (a target bird that has been repeatedly not there when looked for.) But I figured I would be concentrating more on stirring the boat, not tipping over (which I failed at), making sure no one drowns and other leader type responsibility to really look at many birds, which turned out to be the case of course. But when we stopped to play on a sandbar and I had a few minutes before some girls attacked me with water, to look at some birds. I thought they might be plovers since they were so small, but they turn out to be Least Terns. I didn't even realize that you could see Least Terns in Nebraska and was quite surprised and delighted to see them. I think this is my favorite kind of lifer, when you don't plan to see something, don't expect to, and maybe think it isn't even possible when there it is. When I see this kind of lifer I am usually looking for something else, doing something else and sometime don't even have the proper birding equipment, binoculars, books etc. But these are the birds that make the great stories. Stories like the chimney swifts and Angies poorwill. And these birds are the reason us birders never take our eyes of the skies, or trees, or bushes, or tweeting noises, or banks or garbage heaps birds are everywhere and you just never know.
The Target Bird: My first new bird this week was a Sedge Wren. I went looking for it. I planned to see it, I knew where it should, when it should be there, what it looked like and tried to imagine what it sounded like. It was my target. New birds like this can be excited and incredibly frustrating because no matter how much you plan and prepare sometimes you just don't find what you went looking for. This time I did and I was very happy to check another must see in Nebraska bird off my list. After you bird the same area for a long time this usually becomes the only new birds, but not always.
The Accidental Lifer: My second new bird was a Least Tern. I was canoeing with the youth in our ward. We were floating down the Platte river, and on a wimp I took my binoculars. I figure if we were floating down the middle of the Platte maybe I could see a piping plover. (a target bird that has been repeatedly not there when looked for.) But I figured I would be concentrating more on stirring the boat, not tipping over (which I failed at), making sure no one drowns and other leader type responsibility to really look at many birds, which turned out to be the case of course. But when we stopped to play on a sandbar and I had a few minutes before some girls attacked me with water, to look at some birds. I thought they might be plovers since they were so small, but they turn out to be Least Terns. I didn't even realize that you could see Least Terns in Nebraska and was quite surprised and delighted to see them. I think this is my favorite kind of lifer, when you don't plan to see something, don't expect to, and maybe think it isn't even possible when there it is. When I see this kind of lifer I am usually looking for something else, doing something else and sometime don't even have the proper birding equipment, binoculars, books etc. But these are the birds that make the great stories. Stories like the chimney swifts and Angies poorwill. And these birds are the reason us birders never take our eyes of the skies, or trees, or bushes, or tweeting noises, or banks or garbage heaps birds are everywhere and you just never know.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Fun in the Sun
Is it bad that my two year old is tan? She has tan lines and everything. Now let me explain. She has never been sun-burned. She has a completion very similar to mine. One that WILL burn but tans pretty easily and doesn’t burn at the mere thought of sunlight. I will admit that I don’t put sunscreen on her every time we go outside. If it’s a cloudy day (yes I know you can burn when there are clouds) and we are only going to be swimming for 30 min I don’t bother. If it’s sunny and we are going to be longer then of course I put the sunscreen on.
I’ve hear some ‘experts’ say any and ALL tan is horrible wrong and will lead to skin cancer.
This is of course based on the fact that UV light is a know mutagen (it can cause DNA to mutate), all things that can cause DNA to mutate are carcinogenic, they can and usually will result in cancer with repeat exposure. This much is proven. So to avoid skin cancer avoid the carcinogen of UV light.
However other ‘experts’ say that natural (no sunscreen) sun exposure is good. It is also proven that sunlight improves health. We have all experienced what happens during the long days of winter when you just don’t see the sun. It leads to depression among other things and UV light has also been proven to reverse these lack of light symptoms. Also un-protected sun exposure stimulates your body to make natural vitamin D. Vitamin D of course is a good thing, and most Americans don’t have enough. The Vitamin D that your body makes in response to sunlight and the form in OTC vitamins are slightly different, but many disagree whether the difference is important or not. So what’s a mom to do?
Well this Mom is going to continue to protect again a sunburn, but not be overly paranoid about it. If we are going to the Zoo all day, yea I’ll put sunscreen on (her and me) but if we are going for an hour I’m not going to bother. Now let me pause and again explain that if my daughter or myself had a different skin type (like a red-head) then I would do things a little different. I’ve always argued that a tan is a good think, it protects against future sunburns, as long as you don’t over do it. I like the feel of sun on my skin and I think her little tan lines are cute! So I’m going to continue to play in the sun and in the meantime enjoy the best tan I’ve had since high school
I’ve hear some ‘experts’ say any and ALL tan is horrible wrong and will lead to skin cancer.
This is of course based on the fact that UV light is a know mutagen (it can cause DNA to mutate), all things that can cause DNA to mutate are carcinogenic, they can and usually will result in cancer with repeat exposure. This much is proven. So to avoid skin cancer avoid the carcinogen of UV light.
However other ‘experts’ say that natural (no sunscreen) sun exposure is good. It is also proven that sunlight improves health. We have all experienced what happens during the long days of winter when you just don’t see the sun. It leads to depression among other things and UV light has also been proven to reverse these lack of light symptoms. Also un-protected sun exposure stimulates your body to make natural vitamin D. Vitamin D of course is a good thing, and most Americans don’t have enough. The Vitamin D that your body makes in response to sunlight and the form in OTC vitamins are slightly different, but many disagree whether the difference is important or not. So what’s a mom to do?
Well this Mom is going to continue to protect again a sunburn, but not be overly paranoid about it. If we are going to the Zoo all day, yea I’ll put sunscreen on (her and me) but if we are going for an hour I’m not going to bother. Now let me pause and again explain that if my daughter or myself had a different skin type (like a red-head) then I would do things a little different. I’ve always argued that a tan is a good think, it protects against future sunburns, as long as you don’t over do it. I like the feel of sun on my skin and I think her little tan lines are cute! So I’m going to continue to play in the sun and in the meantime enjoy the best tan I’ve had since high school
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)