Home Life – Page 2 – Run Morgan Run

May 15, 2010January 5, 2022

How Did You Spend Your Saturday?

My son had the weekend off which is very unusual for him. He had been wanting to take me to his favorite thrift store in Homewood so this was a perfect opportunity to do so. We usually go to the Salvation Army store in Downers Grove, but according to Matt, this particular store is about twice as big and has a much better men’s selection. He was looking for a few dress shirts for work and was able to find some nice ones here before.

After only 45 minutes we had three nice dress shirts for him, a Boston Red Sox shirt for my collection, an Angels jersey for his collection, a Princeton baseball cap for me (one of my favorite colleges), two college mugs for a friends collection and finally, a college accounting textbook for his summer school class (that was an unusual find). Once we rung it all up the total cost was under $20. That is less than normal cost of one of the Polo dress shirts we had found. A pretty good day of bargain hunting.

When is the last time you shopped at a thrift store? Have you ever been in one? Which one is your favorite and why?

March 2, 2010January 5, 2022

Changing A Pets Name

As I mentioned in my post last night, we adopted a new rescue pup and we want to change his name to make a clean break from his past into his life with us. By changing the dogs name, you are helping him leave his bad memories behind and are now associating his new name with his new loving home.

The suggestion is to always use the old and the new names together. So you would say his old name in a soft monotone voice followed by his new name in a bit louder and more excited voice. After a few weeks you would continue on with just the new name which he should now recognize as his own. So far the change does not seem to confuse him, but only time will tell if this tactic will be successful with our particular pup.

I have high hopes.

February 28, 2010January 5, 2022

A New Addition To The Family

We added another rescue pup to our family today. We have been looking for a compatible breed for over a month now and finally found what we believe will be a good match for Zeus. Zeus is our 4.5 year old Pug/Dachshund who seems to get along well with other Pugs, Puggles and Dachshunds when we go to the dog park or for walks around the neighborhood.

The pup we found is a 2 year old puggle, but we believe he actually has some Chihuahua in him as well and could even be a Chug (Chihuahua/Pug). Event though he looks like a puggle puppy, he is just too skinny to be an adult puggle.

At any rate, the two boys have been getting along pretty well so far meaning Zeus is putting up with the new rookie. I think if they were going to kill each other they would have done it in the first couple of hours. The next few days will determine how much hand (paw) holding we need to do with this new guy in order to get him acclimated to our schedule and Zeus’s schedule. According to the foster parents, he did not get to go on long walks with them and Zeus likes his 2 miler every day so we will see how that goes.

The god of thunder must have a sidekick, so we named this one Apollo. He came to us with a different name but all the research I did suggested that it is OK to change the dogs name and can even be beneficial if he comes from a puppy mill or other bad background.

Welcome home Apollo.

February 10, 2010January 5, 2022

How to Make a Cheap Treadmill Bookshelf

It has been a typical winter here in the Chicagoland area with lots of wet snow and cold to go along with it. As much as i would like to run outside I don’t want to deal with the drivers around here or the possibility of a slip/fall scenario. Being forced to run inside has allowed me to get very familiar with the sounds, smells and feel of our treadmill. As I mentioned in my post on January 13th, we have done some work on our latest treadmill and I am more in touch now with the feel of the machine. We have the unit setup facing the big screen so we can be entertained during the runs, but sometimes I wish I could read a book or blow through some emails while on a fast walk (running causes too much bouncing for me too focus on a book that close to my face, without glasses).

I have looked at some of the other how to links on creating a table type surface for the treadmill but they were all too low for me. I need the material up at eye level so resting a board or other surface on the side rails, which the other solutions suggest, would not work for me.

I made a quick trip to Home Depot to visit their shelving department and found the perfect item to use as a compact, breathable, self supporting shelving unit. I selected a 4 legged metal shelf covering in a white plastic coating with small rubber tips. It was the perfect size for my brand of treadmill (Sole F63) and fit nicely in between the speakers I had added previously. My steps to create the shelf were as follows.

Parts List

Rubbermaid shelf unit – $6.00
(3) Medium sized Binder Clips – about 35 cents

Steps to create

Place the shelf on the treadmill to estimate where to bend two of the legs so it grips the unit better.
Mark the two back legs (facing away from the running surface) with a black marker so I know where and at what angle to bend the legs.
Place one of the legs in my vice with the black mark aligned with the top of the vice.
Bend the leg to about a 20 degree angle (the angle will very depending on how snug you want the leg against the treadmill housing)
Repeat step 4 for the other leg.
Place the shelf on the treadmill and make sure the bent back legs are snug enough against the housing to minimize movement (if not, repeat steps 4 and 5).
Take the three binder clips and attach them to the bottom edge of the shelf so that your book, computer, Kindle, iPad or other device does not slip off the angled surface while the treadmill is in use.

You are now ready to walk and read, type, surf, Skype or whatever. Instead of just sitting around while I read, I can burn a few calories while I learn. There are many articles out there on how many calories you can burn while walking/running based on you height/weight/stride etc, so I won’t estimate here. Just do a Google or Bing search for calories burned while walking/running and you will have lots of data to refer to.

Walk to read. Read to learn. Learn to live.

February 3, 2010January 5, 2022

Skype Is The Best Thing Ever

If you are fortunate enough to travel frequently (or unfortunate depending on the length and destination) you may find your self missing out on events or just missing someone. With my schedule I often find myself missing special events that my kids participate in. Now I’m not just talking about missing one of Jenna volleyball matches or an extra great practice session that she wants to talk about, but sometimes just simple everyday things that bring joy to everyday life.

Matt has discovered the joys of shopping at the Salvation Army thrift store and donating back to them as well. He would much rather spend an hour or so looking for great finds at the store on 75th and Lemont in Downers Grove or the impressively large store in Oak Lawn, than go to the mall and waste his hard earned cash. I have followed his lead in finding some nice items for welding class and for the marathon as I mentioned in my post on January 10, 2010 all in great shape and purchased for pennies on the dollar. He has been collecting shirts from all the major league baseball teams as well as other items that relate to MLB, like caps and glassware. He also has had a few good finds related to the actual implements of the game like baseballs, gloves and bats.

So back to my reason for this post ( I tend to wander but I hope to get better at this as time goes on). Today he scored a really nice pair Nikes, an MLB shirt and a few other items. Normally a phone call to explain his find would be nice but we agreed on a Skype video call so he could show off some of his score. I have a little Logitech Quick Cam for Notebooks (mine is an older version) that I can clip to the top of my laptop and at home we have a webcam connected to our Media Center PC which servers up media to the big screen in the back house. The family can sit on the couch and do a video call with me from anywhere on the planet (limited only to available bandwidth).

We started a video chat after my client visit, diner and a quick run (more on that pain tomorrow.) I find that a video call is much more engaging as I am able to enjoy his expressions and animated gestures, things that you just can’t pick up with a simple voice call. Being two time zones away can be difficult when you are so close to your family so Skype has been one of my most awesome purchases ever. You can get a free account, but I opted for the $3 per month unlimited calls to Canada plan to cut down on the cost of calls to the customers up north (I’m all about saving money).

If you are able, donate your lightly used items to organizations like the Salvation Army. They could really use your help. Or if you have large items or non ‘Consumer’ items, consider giving them away via FreeCycle. Freecycle is an organization that allows you to give and get stuff for free. Instead of adding to the landfill, there may be someone who can use that old bird cage or extra three stacks of shingles that you don’t need anymore. Many communities, including mine have a local chapter. Check it out and help someone out.

January 28, 2010January 5, 2022

They Say It’s Your Birthday…….

Yesterday was Matt’s birthday and he had reserved a room over at a local restaurant/bar called the Brick House. I had not been there before and wonder where the name came from…until I walked in. Anyone familiar with the Commodores song from the 70’s will get where I am going with this. All the wait staff are younger ladies with lots of skin showing similar to Hooters but more denim and midriff exposed.

Anyway the reason for this post is because I crushed a common misconception about attracting women. I always remembered that if you had a cute puppy with you, that was a sure fire conversation starter with the ladies (theory proven a few times in college).

Last night I found out that all you need is cake. We had a giant sheet cake from Sam’s Club for the 15 or so friends in attendance. If you have never tried bakery items from Sam’s, they are very tasty and relatively inexpensive. Even with that about of people we only put a small dent in the total cake volume, so Matt extended a cake invite to our server and anyone else who wanted to partake. Within 5 minutes we have most of the female staff in our room sampling the chocolaty goodness off our fancy dinosaur paper plates. It was quite a site with all our new friends pull up a chair to join the party.

I had to laugh at the swiftness of response and in this case….the cake is not a lie.

My Gift To Matt

January 13, 2010January 5, 2022

Ouch…What The Heck?

Despite the great Marathon experience, apparently I did not come out unscathed. I noticed today that the top of my foot feels like a creaking door and If I put my hand on my shin and move my foot up and down (point the toes at the ceiling then at the floor) I can feel the creaking in my foot.

Turns out I have inflamed extensor tendons something my wife is very familiar with as she has had that and a host of other running related injuries. I think I developed it because I was not running as much as I normally would during the last Sundays marathon and that altered the way my foot handles the miles. Changing your training drastically can cause this injury according to the research I did on the subject.

Lorie prefers to run inside so she has injuries related to that form of training, while I prefer outside but am often forced to run inside because of my work schedule and the fact that I like to run in the evening. Where we live is not very conducive to night running and actually the roads are not the best during the day either. Being forced inside means that we have put lots of miles on the treadmills (yes plural) and have worn thru three of them. The last one took such a pounding that the deck shattered and started to fray the belt.

When we buy these things we make sure they have a good warranty since we will beat the crap out of it over its life time. This breakage was fixed by the manufacturer by sending me a new deck, belt and lube so I could do the repair myself. It was pretty easy once the whole thing was apart. The only tricky adjustment was the belt tension. To remove the belt you must remove the from and back rollers, them refi them once the new belt and deck are in place. Adjusting the tension to so it is not too tight and not too loose can be tricky. It took a few days to finally get it to where we want it and those few days can be dangerous

You don’t want to tighten the belt too much at first as you want the belt to gradually stretch and the lube to spread out evenly between the belt and rollers. The dangerous part is when the belt is too loose and you take a heavy step, the belt slips (stops) and it is murder on your knees. I would grab on tight to the handle bars at the beginning of each run and take a hard stomp and try to make the belt slip. If it did slip, I would get out the hex key and do a quarter turn on each side to tighten the belt. If it did not slip I would repeat the process the next day until I was getting no slippage. Like I said, about two weeks of adjustment and we were back in business. Only another 2 months before it gets nice outside and I have to lay off training for a few weeks anyway until I heal.

January 2, 2010January 5, 2022

Hello everyone and welcome!

Welcome to my world. This is the initial post form my new blog, Run Morgan Run. I decide to take this thing live right before I leave for Florida to run in the 2010 Walt Disney World Marathon as I wanted to capture the trip as my first extended attempt at writing. I have never been much of a writer (or at least attempted to be) not since writing for the high school paper. In addition to the writing, I was a photographer for the paper and the music director for the radio station. Both those jobs continue to influence my life today and I wanted to reconnect with writing.

Before I continue, I must give props to Doug Schneider. Doug was a high school friend who was on the radio station with me and went on to become a successful writer in the New York state area. We recently had a chance to reconnect while he was in town for the holidays and I will be bugging him for advice as I move forward with this new adventure. Doug is the Public Service Editor at Press & Sun-Bulletin (Gannett Central NY Newspaper Group).

Back to my reason for this blog. As the name of this blog suggests, I am a runner. I started running almost two years ago as a way to stay healthy and set and achieve some concrete goals (you can’t cheat running goals. If you don’t put in the time, it really hurts on race day). I wanted to track my progress as I train for and participate in races, local and not so local. So far I have done 5K’s, 10K’s Half Marathon and this Sunday my first Full Marathon. I plan on getting involved in Triathlons as well in the coming year.

So this blog will track my progress with those and other activities I like to participate in as well as commentary on my daughters volleyball career (traveling volleyball is a part time career for the parents as well), travels for my day job (Service Management Project Manager) and other things I want to try.

So, thanks for visiting and please bear with me as I attempt to get better at this and at least make it interesting.

Daniel Morgan