SHORT DAY IN CHICAGO (DAY 118)

My weekend at home was cut short.
Cut short by the need to leave Chicago to avoid a predicted snow storm.
But not before I found the time to take a hike.

SAHARA DESERT

Somehow I missed the contemporaneous notification of this 'important' milestone.  Four days ago my fitbit had 'awarded' me with the 'coveted' SAHARA badge.

I was curious if other sources also listed the length of the Sahara Desert as 2983 miles.  Sure enough, a quick check on wikipedia confirmed that same distance.

As much as I appreciate the recognition from fitbit for having achieved this milestone, I am pretty sure that a hike across the Sahara Desert trudging through all that endless sand would have been a far more difficult journey!

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

I was very pleased on Saturday morning with the progress I am making with my weight after so many weeks going in the wrong direction.  I am more motivated than ever to continue this success. Before lunch I logged a 99 minute workout on the elliptical machine. It gave me the opportunity to watch two more episodes of Star Trek Voyager. I have completed Season I and II (only five more to go). I can't remember when '7 of 9' makes her initial appearance - but I am looking forward to that character being added to the mix.  All this time watching netflix.... In the old days I used to watch Fox News all day. It seems less important these days.  Whether I watch Fox News or not - Hillary Clinton will still be a crook and Donald Trump will still be a jerk. I prefer to spend my video watching time lost in the future. It is much more productive! And certainly more enjoyable.

Shortly after lunch it was time to venture out into the great outdoors. Weather conditions were seemingly less than ideal for a marathon urban hike - but that did not stop me. When I set out at 1:49PM, the temperature was 93° (although with the 'wind chill' it felt like 99°)

.

.

.

I often find urban outdoor art ridiculous. This sculpture is STEEL ROOTS by Steve Tobin.  I  have always liked it. This particular 'masterpiece' can be found by the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum on Cannon Drive.

.

Before dinner, I guess I still had some energy in me... so I popped back on the elliptical machine again for 97 minutes more.

.

After dinner, I took a walk downtown with my daughter, and tacked on an additional 5000+ steps in a four mile walk. When the day was done, I had completed 55031 steps.  This was only the fourth time I had reached this dubious achievement since September 2015.

I can't say whether I lost any weight yesterday.  I am fairly certain though, that I didnt gain any weight!

.

Your Food Diary For:

Saturday, June 11, 2016

BREAKFAST	Calories	Carbs	Fat	Protein	Sodium	Sugar
Malt O Meal - Honey Nut Scooters	480	96	6	12	840	36
	480	96	6	12	840	36
L U N C H
Breaded Pork Chops, 16 oz	630	22	42	40	124	2
ORGANIC DATE PIECES	240	60	0	2	20	44
	870	82	42	42	144	46
D I N N E R
Chunky Sirloin Burger Soup	260	36	8	12	1,580	8
Breaded Pork Chops, 6 oz	236	8	16	15	47	1
Cheese Pizza Slice, 1 slice	343	32	8	10	540	1
UNSWEETENED BANANA CHIPS	170	16	10	2	5	1
	1,009	92	42	39	2,172	11
S N A C K S
Chessmen Cookies, 3 cookies	120	18	5	2	80	5
Alvalle - Gazpacho Soup	75	7	4	1	320	4
Gin Gins - Chewy Ginger Candy	120	30	0	0	0	30
DARK CHOCOLATE GINGER	340	58	14	2	10	50
Add Food Quick Tools	655	113	23	5	410	89
Totals	3,014	383	113	98	3,566	181
Your Daily Goal	7,316	914	244	366	2,300	274
Remaining	4,302	530	131	267	-1,265	92
	Calories	Carbs	Fat	Protein	Sodium	Sugar
	*You've earned 5,386 extra calories from exercise today

.

Your Exercise Diary for:

Saturday, June 11, 2016

Cardiovascular	Minutes	Calories Burned
STAR TRAC ELLIPTICAL	99	1,546
Walking	200	2,890
STAR TRAC ELLIPTICAL	97	1,155
MFP iOS calorie adjustment	N/A	-205
Daily Total / Goal	397 / 30	5,386 / 590
Weekly Total / Goal	1462 / 210	18,956 / 4,130

.

It is not so easy to earn the fitbit 'Platform Shoe' badge as it requires 55,000 steps in one day. Yesterday was the fourth time I have accomplished this.  It was the first time in nearly 6 months. Call me a psycho if you like - I would tend to agree with that assessment!

.
more from wikipedia...

The Sahara (Arabic: الصحراء الكبرى‎‎, aṣ-ṣaḥrāʾ al-kubrā , 'the Greatest Desert') is the largest hot desert in the world, and the world's third largest desert afterAntarctica and the Arctic. Its surface area of 9,400,000 square kilometres (3,600,000 sq mi)—including the Libyan Desert—is comparable to the respective land areas of China or the United States, and considerably larger than Brazil or the continent of Australia. The desert comprises much of the land found within North Africa, excluding the fertile coastal region situated against the Mediterranean Sea, the Atlas Mountains of the Maghreb, and the Nile Valley of Egypt and Sudan. The Sahara stretches from the Red Sea in the east and the Mediterranean in the north, to the Atlantic Ocean in the west, where the landscape gradually transitions to a coastal plain. To the south, it is delimited by the Sahel, a belt of semi-arid tropical savanna around the Niger River valley and Sudan Region of Sub-Saharan Africa. The Sahara can be divided into several regions, including the western Sahara, the central Ahaggar Mountains, the Tibesti Mountains, the Aïr Mountains, the Ténéré desert, and the Libyan Desert. Its name is derived from the plural Arabic language word for desert (صحارىṣaḥārā  [ˈsˤɑħɑːrɑː]).

.

Steve Tobin

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Steve Tobin
Born	1957 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US
Nationality	American
Occupation	sculptor

Walking Roots (2002) at Laumeier Sculpture Park, St. Louis, Missouri

Steve Tobin (born 1957, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American sculptor. Much of his work draws inspiration from nature, and the Christian Science Monitor has described his sculptures as "monuments to the meeting of science and art"

He studied theoretical mathematics at Tulane University, graduating with a B.S. in 1979 and works from a studio/foundry in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. His works have included an igloo fashioned from the windows of M60 Patton combat tanks, and glass cocoons that he hung in a chapel in Antwerp.

In 1993, he created an installation at Retretti in Punkaharju, Finland, an art museum in a series of artificial caves. He filled the caves with tall, "totemic" glass sculptures, and created a "waterfall" from strands of glass. After the exhibition, he ceased to work with glass, stating later that "I retired from glass because I could never top what I did at Retretti".

Five years later, he gave a show at Fuller Museum of Art in Massachusetts featuring bronze castings of Ghanaian termite mounds; he had become interested in Ghana after having an assistant from the country.In 2002, the Page Museum in Los Angeles gave an exhibition of his work titled "Tobin's Naked Earth: Nature as Sculpture", beside the La Brea Tar Pits. The show included the termite mound castings, a metal casting of the root system of a tree, and a sculpture fashioned from bone marrow.

In 2005, Tobin installed what is perhaps his best known work, Trinity Root, at St. Paul's Chapel in Lower Manhattan, New York City. During the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, the chapel had been partly shielded from damage by a 70-year-oldsycamore tree. He created a bronze sculpture of the tree's stump and roots, which now sits in front of the church on the corner ofWall Street and Broadway. Tobin financed the $330,000 sculpture himself, taking out a home equity loan to do so.

For more than a decade, Tobin also worked with exploding small charges in blocks of clay and then firing the results, some of which were featured at the Payne Gallery of Moravian College.