Run Forrest! Run!

Forrest Gump: "That day, for no particular reason, I decided to go for a little run."

If you read through the links that I posted below about the Ultramarathon Man, Dean Karnazes, you might have come across him talking about the runner's high. It exists...I don't know how to define it. According to Dean the amount of running he does the running high sometimes lasts 3 weeks. I don't know about that long but when I come back from my long runs it hurts, it hurts real bad sometimes. But it feels really good. When I stop my run whether it is after 10 or 12 kms or sometimes just after about 30 minutes there is something good in the air at that point. Something that makes me feel...happy. Its a kind of invincible, good invincible, feeling. The head is just clear at that point. I know this can be medically explained with the hormones and adrenelin flowing through your viens but it is there and it does happen.

Once you get your mechanics sorted out and find your equilbrium speed, there is something about running! Maybe it is that feeling that you have left your troubles behind...maybe it is the insulation that it gives you from life's chatter and clutter...maybe it is the peace of mind that it gives...maybe its just the view of the road passing beneath your feet...maybe it is that solace you've been searching for...maybe it is just about getting somewhere... maybe it is about you proving something to yourself...maybe its the wind on your face and its hum in your ears...maybe this, maybe that, maybe, maybe, maybe....arrrrrrrrrgh! :)

Just take it that it exists. Don't run as if it is a race, run for yourself. Find an area that you like and keep your head up because you will notice things that will open your eyes. Put on your favorite music and just run. Run till you know it is going to hurt tomorrow and then just wait when the pain comes...you will be smiling :)

PS:
As an after thought, I actually wore the wrong shoes when I was running back at home during the Diwali vacation and I came back with the inside area of my shins hurting in a nagging kind of way. I was quite miserable but it didn't stop me from enjoying my runs. Don't get me wrong I know how long distance running can be damaging to the body. My friend 'U' has done that to himself so I did pay attention to my pains and bought myself a great pair of shiny New Balance running shoes ;-)

There was a beautiful sunset across from my balcony today...


The crescent moon...

Antioxidants

Antioxidants are chemicals that reduce the rate of oxidation. Oxidation is what happens in our bodies (in our cells) all the time, its called aging :)

Researchers have found a high correlation between oxidative damage and the occurrence of disease.

Research suggests that consumption of antioxidant-rich foods reduces damage to cells and biochemicals from free radicals. This may slow down, prevent, or even reverse certain diseases that result from cellular damage, and perhaps even slow down the natural aging process. This is the basis for the free-radical theory of aging.

Some studies suggest that by destroying free radicals and reducing cellular damage, antioxidants in the diet can have positive health effects, such as preventing macular degeneration (studied in the Age-Related Eye Disease Study); maintaining the immune system; potentially preventing neurodegeneration due to oxidative stress; preventing DNA damage; and lowering the risk of cardiovascular disease.

So its important to keep a good amount of antioxidants in our diets, especially when:

• You probably eat outside a lot and are not able to incorporated enough of the right and fresh things in your diet.
• You exercise a lot. Whenever you do endurance exercise like running long distance or weight training you are increasing the cell damage in your body.

Just by paying attention to what you eat and adding a few really simple things in your diet, antioxidant intake can be increased. It will help keep diseases away, improve your general health condition including your skin. Read on...

Physical exercise
During exercise, oxygen consumption can temporarily increase by a factor of more than 10. This leads to a temporary large increase in the production of oxygen free radicals, resulting in increased cell damage contributing to muscular fatigue during and after exercise. The body uses antioxidants to reduce the amount of such damage. The inflammatory response that occurs after strenuous exercise is also associated with increased occurrence of free radicals, especially during the 24 hours after an exercise session. In this phase too, antioxidants in the body reduce the damage.

Here are some good food sources of the four most studied antioxidants.
Vitamin C -- Important sources include citrus fruits, green peppers, broccoli, green leafy vegetables, strawberries, raw cabbage and potatoes.
Vitamin E -- Important sources include wheat germ, nuts, seeds, whole grains, green leafy vegetables, vegetable oil and fish-liver oil.
Beta-carotene -- Carrots, squash, broccoli, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, kale, collards, cantaloupe, peaches and apricots are particularly rich sources of beta-carotene.
Selenium -- Good food sources include fish, shellfish, red meat, grains, eggs, chicken and garlic.

Green Tea: Health benefits:

• Preventing the degradation of cell membranes by neutralizing the spread of free radicals (which occurs during the process of oxidation).
• Increases fat oxidation (helps the body use fat as an energy source) and raises metabolism.
• Lowering LDL cholesterol (in high doses in lab tests)

The benefits from green tea are pretty amazing, read it again...

Most of the data here is collected from the wikipedia page on Antioxidants.

Kite Runner

I totally forgot to write about the book "Kite Runner" that I finished reading almost 2 months back now.

“Kite Runner” (by Khaled Hosseni) is a really powerful book with a very touching and heartening story. It is quite traumatic in parts and will have a complete grip on you.

The story traces the life of an Afghan boy, Amir, from when he was a kid in Afghanistan to him becoming a young man, married and now living in California. The book starts with a phone call after which Amir must now return to his native land to seek redemption for what happened one winter season. As a kid Amir lived a privileged life and his best friend, Hassan, is the household servant's son. They grow up flying kites, reading books, telling stories and do everything together. But everything changes on a fateful winter day. On a day when Amir and Hassan have just won the town's prestigious kite flying championship, an unspeakable incident, starting with Hassan's haunting words for Amir "For you, a thousand times over...” changes everything in their relationship.

This book also opens your eyes to the turmoil and misery in the lives of the normal people in Afghanistan, and how different it is from the stereotypical view the world holds of that country and its people.

An extremely well written book from which you can pick numerous memorable passages. The opening para itself is quite striking. Here is a part of it:
"...it's wrong what they say about the past, I've learnt, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out."

Tadiyanmol Trek...
...a picture I took on the trek...


Stimulated by this I did a pencil sketch, while sitting on my desk :)
...a dark scan of that sketch...


...a lighter scan of that sketch...

Sniff Sniff...Grrrrrrr...

PS: I took...

PS: I didn't...took!

Ok one more...pbs10, cut his hair short and now sports new glasses...geek!

Further Farther

Sitting in one of my favorite (not!) meeting, the "operations staff", someone remarked "We are farther ahead today." Immediately my mind digressed, that happens a lot when I am in this meeting by the way, but I digress again now ;-)
Anyway, I started thinking about the movie "Finding Forrester". In that movie a very snobbish English professor passes a snide remark at a student saying "Perhaps your skills do extend a bit farther than basketball." This kid is pretty smart and takes up the professor’s challenge.
He says, "Further. You said my skills extend 'farther' than the basketball court. 'Farther' relates to distance. 'Further' is a definition of degree. You should have said 'further'.

Anyway a very cool scene that one, but by the time I thought all this, only about 15 seconds had passed instead of the 15 minutes I had hoped for ;)

Multi-Touch Interfacing

This is a pretty amazing multi-touch sensing touch screen technology. You can actually use all your ten fingers (and your nose if ten fingers are not enough) at the same time. Another cool thing is the pressure sensing ability of the screen and the applications that can be built around it. In one of the applications in this demo you'll see pressure on the screen injecting heat into a lava lamp application and heating up the wax.

In another application you'll see that you can use your thumb and index finger to form an axis and then apply pressure from the other hand to tilt the display in 3-D around that axis, like while viewing 3-D maps etc.

Those features, the two finger gesture to zoom in and out and the ability for people to build applications and define their own gestures can really revolutionize the way we interface with computers today. The way we interface with computers today looks so outdated compared to this type of multi touch interfacing...Very Very Cool!!!

p.s: Click the image below once, that'll enable the window then press the play button on the bottom left hand corner of the image to view the video.