MOUNT BALDHEAD (DAY 88)

The highpoint (pun intended) of my day yesterday took place after my 5.5 mile hike at Van Buren State Park. The highpoint came when I successfully climbed the 300 steps at Mt. Baldhead in Saugatuck during an additional .75 mile hike at a second location about 20 miles north of Van Buren State Park.

Mt. Baldhead. Saugatuck, Michigan. In the first picture I am contemplating the 300 step climb. In the second picture, I am smiling having completed the 300 step climb.

Mount Baldhead, also known as Bald Head Peak, Baldhead, and Radar Hill is a summit of a hill in Allegan County, Michigan. Mount Baldhead is a hill and a sand dune, in the Sand Hills between Kalamazoo Lake and Lake Michigan. It is located northwest of Saugatuck. It has an elevation of 794 feet / 242 meters.

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HOW I WALKED TO MICHIGAN (DAY 87)

Yes, I walked to Michigan on Wednesday morning, long before sunrise.
It really was not such a major accomplishment.
My hotel was in HOWE, Indiana less than one mile from the state line.
An eight and a half mile is a healthy walk considering I still had 30 minutes to drive to my first appointment at 9:00AM.

2018

On the last day of 2017 I thought I might take an urban hike. When I woke up, the temperature was about 3°F so I chose to wait awhile before venturing outdoors. It would have been crazy to go outside when it was so cold, right? So I waited until around noon when the temperature had soared to 10°F. My hike took me to the beautiful Chicago lakefront. Although the skies were a deep blue in every direction, oddly enough the lakefront was not very crowded. I thought that I would see signs of the lake beginning to freeze near the shoreline, but it has not (yet). As the temperatures will not exceed freezing (32°F) for the ten days (at least) the lake may look a bit different next weekend. The new year is going help dispel the notion of global warming. We could use a little global warming right about now. Happy New Year.

Your Food Diary For:

Sunday, December 31, 2017

BREAKFAST	Calories kcal	Carbs g	Fat g	Protein g	Sodium mg	Sugar g
Special K Chewy Nut Bars (Cranberry Almond)	450	60	18	9	180	36
Essential Everyday Butter Flavored Grits	500	105	5	10	1,700	5
Kirkland Bacon	200	0	15	15	875	0
	1,150	165	38	34	2,755	41
L U N C H
Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich	700	55	31	17	286	31
	700	55	31	17	286	31
D I N N E R
Rotisserie Chicken	510	3	33	45	1,860	3
Baked Beans	250	43	1	3	313	6
	760	46	34	48	2,173	9
French Baguette	450	90	3	15	1,110	3
Brie Cheese	300	0	27	12	360	0
	750	90	30	27	1,470	3
Totals	3,360	356	133	126	6,684	84
Your Daily Goal	2,968	371	99	149	2,300	111
Remaining	-392	15	-34	23	-4,384	27
	Calories kcal	Carbs g	Fat g	Protein g	Sodium mg	Sugar g
	*You've earned 1,038 extra calories from exercise today

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SANITY QUESTION

It took a lot of effort to get my five mile walk in on Wednesday. My day started in Lafayette, Indiana and ended in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I visited two customers in Indiana and then scooted north to visit a customer in Ann Arbor on Thursday morning. It wasn't until 7PM until I could get outside to get in my steps. It had rained all day as I traversed the two states, but finally around 7PM, the rain had stopped. It takes a lot of mental willpower to get outside for a five mile hike in unfamiliar surroundings, in the darkness. Amazingly, I still have that willpower. But I do question my sanity.
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Even I am self-aware enough to see that this is a photo that does not look like the depiction of sanity.  But you know what, the feeling of accomplishment that I feel each and every day that I take my daily hike, is something that would be too painful to miss. At least that's how I feel these days.

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Your Food Diary For:

Wednesday, November 15, 2017

BREAKFAST	Calories kcal	Carbs g	Fat g	Protein g	Sodium mg	Sugar g
Svenhard's - Cinnamon Horn, 1 pastry 2oz	240	32	12	3	230	19
Toast and Butter - Toast and Butter, 2 slice	200	0	22	0	0	0
Kellogg's - Fruit Loops Cereal	220	52	2	2	270	24
	660	84	36	5	500	43
L U N C H
Speedy Ham Salad Sandwich on Wheat Bread	310	42	10	14	990	7
Chobani - Fruit on the Bottom - Pineapple	260	34	5	22	100	28
	570	76	15	36	1,090	35
D I N N E R
Campbell's Sirloin Burger Soup	520	68	16	28	3,160	12
	520	68	16	28	3,160	12
S N A C K S
Klondike - Klondike Bar, 1 bar	250	29	14	3	70	23
Milky Way - Midnight Dark, 1 bar	220	36	8	1	65	29
	470	65	22	4	135	52
Totals	2,220	293	89	73	4,885	142
Your Daily Goal	2,905	363	97	146	2,300	109
Remaining	685	70	8	73	-2,585	-33
	Calories kcal	Carbs g	Fat g	Protein g	Sodium mg	Sugar g
	*You've earned 975 extra calories from exercise today

If every day were like today...   You'd weigh 217.1 lbs in 5 weeks     

UNIVERSITY STEPS IN TO PROTECT THE SNOWFLAKES

Honestly, when I first saw this story about Michigan State University banning whiteboards from dorms, I thought it was either a great example of fake news, or purposeful satire (The Onion) or just a stupid joke. Nope, it is apparently real. Our universities are raising an entire generation of little delicate flowers, or snowflakes that will break if exposed to anything annoying or unwanted.  Why stop at whiteboards?  What about the dangers of a Post It note? And what if some jerk, writes something annoying, racist, or evil directly on the door of someone's dorm room? Just kidding, this is a rhetorical question. The solution is so obvious. If some evil, twisted jerk write something annoying, racist or evil directly on a dorm room door, all the university would need to do is simply remove EVERY DOOR FROM EVERY DORM ROOM. There you go, problem solved. 

Your Food Diary For:

Thursday, February 23, 2017

BREAKFAST	Calories kcal	Carbs g	Fat g	Protein g	Sodium mg	Sugar g
Eggs - Poached (whole egg), 4 large	294	2	20	25	588	2
Kirkland - Bacon, 4 slices	160	0	12	12	700	0
	454	2	32	37	1,288	2
L U N C H
Subway - Turkey Sub Sandwich	560	92	7	36	1,620	14
Subway - Sun Chips- Harvest Cheddar	210	27	9	4	320	3
	770	119	16	40	1,940	17
D I N N E R
Spaghetti With Meat Sauce	500	131	3	22	0	0
	500	131	3	22	0	0
S N A C K S
Oatmega Bar - Chocolate Mint Crisp	300	33	11	22	189	8
	300	33	11	22	189	8
Totals	2,024	285	62	121	3,417	27
Your Daily Goal	2,584	323	86	130	2,300	97
Remaining	560	38	24	9	-1,117	70
	Calories kcal	Carbs g	Fat g	Protein g	Sodium mg	Sugar g

       Your Exercise Diary for:

Thursday, February 23, 2017

Cardiovascular	Minutes	Calories Burned
Treadmill 3.3mph, incline 15	60	740
Daily Total / Goal	60 / 30	740 / 590
Weekly Total / Goal	501 / 210	5,175 / 4,130

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from the Washington Post....

Michigan State wants to cut down on harassment. So it’s banning a dorm-room staple: whiteboards.

By Amy B Wang February 22 at 2:37 PM 

Sharing a communal bathroom. Buying twin XL sheets. Eating late-night pizza. Leaving messages on a friend’s dorm-room whiteboard down the hall. All could be considered quintessential experiences when it comes to life inside a college dorm. But starting this fall, Michigan State University will no longer allow students to hang whiteboards outside their dorm-room doors, saying the ubiquitous dry-erase boards have become too much of an outlet for anonymous, hateful messages. “It had become more of a distraction than a helpful tool,” MSU residential services spokeswoman Kat Cooper told WLNS News. “You know, once in a while, someone writes something that isn’t very nice.”Cooper told the Detroit News that “in any given month, there are several incidents” of negative messages, some racial and others sexual. Whiteboards have also been decreasing in popularity with the rise of social media and smartphones, MSU spokesman Jason Cody told The Washington Post in an email. “Basically, whiteboards are no longer an essential communication tool for today’s college students,” he said. “They are an attractive nuisance whose utility no longer outweighs their abuse.” For those reasons, the university decided to remove whiteboards from the list of items allowed on dorm doors next semester, Cody said. Though university officials said there was no single incident that led to the ban, the Lansing chapter of the NAACP hailed the decision on Facebook as a response to a recent case in which someone allegedly wrote the n-word on a whiteboard belonging to an African American honors student at MSU. “It’s been a while but MSU Police have informed us that ALL dormatory [sic] white boards will be removed asap,” the group wrote. “Victory!!!” Several people decried the ban and the NAACP’s response to it. (It is incorrect that the whiteboards will be removed as soon as possible.) Many felt it would do little to curb racism. “How is this a victory when every dorm resident will be punished because of one racist idiot? What does this accomplish exactly?” one Facebook user wrote in response to the NAACP chapter’s post. “It seems to me you’re giving more power to the racist. Should we have limited skyscrapers to only 10 stories after 9/11 in an effort to end terrorism? Help me to understand the reasoning and logic.” Another user wrote that the university should have done more to find the student who left the racial slur, rather than “limiting everyones self expression and freedom of speech because one a–hole wrote the n-word.” Another person, he posited, could just as easily write something derogatory directly on the door in permanent marker. The Lansing NAACP did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday. Michigan State is one of the largest public universities in the United States, with about 50,000 students, according to fall 2016 enrollment figures. About 39,000 of those students are undergraduates. About 18.7 percent of the students enrolled at MSU are students of color, according to the university. Like other large public schools, MSU has seen its share of controversial incidents centered on race. Last fall, an MSU freshman came under fire after she posed with a gorilla mascot at a football game and compared it to an African American girl in an Instagram post, WILX News reported. Her post, which went viral, prompted the student’s sorority to announce that she was no longer a member and for the university itself to issue a statement about the school’s commitment to inclusion. “One of the university’s core values is inclusion, and we are committed to fostering a campus climate that does not condone racial harassment or bullying,” Cody, the MSU spokesman, said at the time. “The university is aware of the recent posting connected to an MSU student. This posting is deeply troubling and is clearly not aligned with our core values. We are addressing this situation in a responsible manner through multiple channels.” Whiteboards at MSU are not provided by the university but are the personal property of students, Cody said Wednesday. Next year, the ban on whiteboards will be enforced by residence hall staff. The university is still working on a more detailed implementation plan, he said. In a letter to the editor of the State News, the MSU campus newspaper, sophomore Jack Kellett said a part of him was relieved when he heard about the whiteboard ban, since he has “witnessed firsthand” hate speech left on students’ doors as a resident assistant.

“Whiteboards on doors, especially with markers attached, are easy ways for anyone to anonymously communicate hostile, divisive rhetoric, some of which threatens the safety of students and contributes to a negative campus environment,” Kellett wrote. “Fewer incident reports for me to make, right?” Unfortunately, the ban would not deter bullies or “make hateful students less hateful", he said. “Rather than asking, ‘what can we do to make it harder for residents to bully/harass other residents,’ the university should be asking, ‘how can we get residents to not bully/harass in the first place?’ ” Kellett wrote. “… I’d encourage the university’s administrators to do a careful reevaluation regarding whether they expect this ban to actually reduce instances of harassment or bullying. What they will hopefully discover is that the problem is a little more complicated than $7 whiteboards.” University officials have said they do not expect the whiteboard ban to eliminate wholesale the problem of harassment on campus. Cody said Michigan State does “extensive things on campus around race, diversity and inclusion,” and pointed a reporter to a website outlining the university’s inclusion and intercultural initiatives.

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WILL POST IT NOTES BE NEXT TO BE OUTLAWED FROM UNIVERSITIES? THEY ARE A CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER...

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MUSKEGON

My travels took me to Grand Rapids, Michigan yesterday. I still was able to squeeze in one hour of sunlight in Muskegon, where I was to be lodged for the night. As Michigan is on the western half of the eastern time zone, it gets dark one hour later than does it in Chicago. I managed to create my own path and hike 5 miles before darkness set in. Part of my hike brought me to Mona Lake Park. I was surprised how cold it was after a few days in Chicago where the temperatures exceeded 50°F. When I set out to hike it was 32°F. I just checked the local weather here in Muskegon, on Thursday morning, and it is currently 16°F. Apparently winter is not yet over. (especially on the east coast where a big storm has been forecast.)

In the world of politics, Jeff Sessions was finally confirmed as Attorney General of the United States. My President may be a bit unbalanced and unpredictable (or perhaps too predictable) - but he has accumulated a great cabinet and nominated a fantastic judge to the Supreme Court. I think it has been shameful how the Senate Democrats have stalled the cabinet hearings and stood against so many of these cabinet nominees. Oh, wait, the Democrats in the Senate have no shame, therefore it is impossible that they have behaved shamefully. 

Your Food Diary For:

Wednesday, February 8, 2017

BREAKFAST	Calories kcal	Carbs g	Fat g	Protein g	Sodium mg	Sugar g
Egg - Poached Egg, 3 Large Egg	213	1	14	18	447	1
Kirkland - Pre-Cooked Bacon	200	0	15	15	875	0
	413	1	29	33	1,322	1
L U N C H
Turkey and cheese sandwich	620	74	20	38	2,640	12
	620	74	20	38	2,640	12
D I N N E R
Subway - Turkey Breast Foot Long	560	92	7	36	0	14
	560	92	7	36	0	14
S N A C K S
Lunchables - Turkey and Cheddar	260	22	13	12	670	5
Sage - Red Delicious Apple, 3	285	75	1	2	5	57
	545	97	14	14	675	62
Totals	2,138	264	70	121	4,637	89
Your Daily Goal	2,746	343	91	138	2,300	103
Remaining	608	79	21	17	-2,337	14
	Calories kcal	Carbs g	Fat g	Protein g	Sodium mg	Sugar g

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Your Exercise Diary for:

Wednesday, February 8, 2017

Cardiovascular	Minutes	Calories Burned
5 Mile Hike Muskegon	73	884
Daily Total / Goal	73 / 30	884 / 590
Weekly Total / Goal	284 / 210	2,779 / 4,130