I'm 5 Times the Man I Used to Be

So, I wanted to post something a little more on the personal side. I have really made it a goal to get into better shape. I was looking for a program and came across the one hundred push ups program. The program is that after six week (at a minimum), you should be able to do one hundred consecutive push ups. I thought that would be cool and I started off. I made the following to show my experience with the program (you can click on it if you can't read it):


You do an exhaustion test, which puts you in a class for a week or two. You have 3 workouts a week. The workout consists of a few sets of push ups finished off with a maxing out.

When I began the program I could only do 10 consecutive push ups (yeah I know it's pitiful but in my defense I haven't done a push up for about 9 years). The blue area is the maximum amount of push ups I have done. The green bars are the total workout (sets plus max). The purple bars are the exhaustion tests that you do every two weeks or so.

I reached the end of the six weeks then tried the final test. I only did 40 which was really lame. It happened that I came down with a cold (the gray area) which lasted for a while. Once I was feeling better I took another exhaustion test and did 50+ consecutive push ups.

When I started I could only do 10 and now I can do 50. That's why I'm 5 times the man I used to be. I would invite anyone who reads this to start the program. I might keep everyone posted when I meet the goal.

Health Care Solved - It's Because We're Rich

It seems like all I hear talked about is how American health care is broken, that is in between reports on Michael Jackson (if you just came out of a coma he died recently). The argument usually goes something like because Americans pay more than Europeans for health care, and are less healthy the American health system is broken. Okay so it's expensive! I get that. So how are we going to fix it?

First, lets find out what is causing the costs to increase and maybe we can fix it. Kenneth Arrow, a Nobel Prize winning economist explained why Americans pay more in these terms:

The basic reason why health costs increased is that health care is a good thing! Because today there is a lot more you can do! Consider all these expenses that are diagnostic. Cat scans, X-rays, MRIs and now the proton-powered whatever-it-is. Something that is the size of a football field, cost $50 million, and has all sorts of diagnostic powers. A lot of these technologies clearly reveal things that would not be revealed otherwise. There's no question about it. Diagnostics have improved. Technology has improved. You know, sending things through your blood stream to help in operations, instead of cutting you open. It's incredible. But these things are costly.

Oh wait. We are paying more because there has been technological change, which is a a good thing, but it is costly. And I thought it was all those evil doctors who want to remove your tonsils because they can get reimbursed more. Well that changes everything.

To contain costs we need to stop innovation, and one way to do that is to make Americans poorer. We could model ourselves off of poorest Africa. That would insure there was no innovation. And that would solve the problem with America's health care system costs. After all we are no healthier given all this innovation so why pursuit it? Plus given the government's operatus modi, we'll have this problem solved in nothing flat.

Berry Picking

We went Cherry, Blueberry, and Raspberry picking last Saturday

Blueberry picking

Mason put as many blueberries as he could grab into his mouth the whole time we were trying to pick

The "Fruit" of our labor

Enjoying a fresh homemade blueberry pie

Fun in June and July

Here's a little update to what we have been up to lately.
Canoeing on the Erie Canal

Hiking

We camped in our back yard one weekend. The boys liked helping set up the tent

Mason decide he like the poles for the tent through our fence for our garden better than in the tent

We cooked foil dinners

And slept outside

And roasted marshmellows

The boys helping clean the cars (their car as well)

Mason helping with laundry

Relaxing on the 4th of July

Caleb took swim lessons and loved it

Update on the Garden

June 27th - Box 1 - sweet peas are going crazy, broccoli is growing great, everything is doing well - we had to fence the whole thing in (no more cages) because a groundhog pushed the cages off and attacked our food.

Box 2 - replanted lettuce, spinach, and radishes (harvested all the first plant) and our zuchini plant is doing well after the attack from the ground hog

July 11th - we harvested lots of sweet peas, our broccoli, some strawberries, lettuce, and radishes today

Those are the crazy sweet peas behind Caleb

The boys in front of our sunflowers